Hina Latif

25 October 2015
NUTR101
Professor Ducey
Nutrition Reflection #3
Through millions of years of adaptation and evolutionary change, humans have
and will continue to evolve into their most suitable version. Natural selection has played
a vital role in optimizing body structures for specific climates, selecting skin color in
response to amount of UV absorbed, and continuing to evolve eating habits to best
nourish our bodies. Changes in body and size have adapted with climates.
Australapithecus afarensis displays a wide rib cage at the bottom and narrow at the top.
The structure provided suitable room for a diet that was largely plant based, particularly
ample room for a large gut. Since plants require more energy to digest than meat or
insects, the longer gut enabled more time in the digestive tract to extract the maximal
nutrition possible. In contrast, the Homo erectus has a long and lean body adapted to hot
environments to keep the body cool. His long legs show that walking/running were an
essential part of his behavior and his narrow, barrel-shaped thorax demonstrates a shift
toward a shorter gut for a diet that is more animal-based. The link between nutrition and
reproductive success is vital in order for reproductive to successfully occur. Wellnourished animals are less prone to health issues and thrive better than malnourished.
Richard Wranghams cooking hypothesis provides evidence that cooked food is simply
preferred and provides more benefits to our bodies than raw food. He explains that the
body absorbs only a fraction of the calories in raw starch and protein and the remainder

passes into the large bowel, where microbes break it down. In contrast, the body gets
30% more energy from cooked oat, wheat, and potato as compared to raw. He introduced
the idea that cooking outsources some of the bodys work of digestion so that more
energy is extracted from food and less expended in processing it. Ultimately, cooking
breaks down the collective tissue in meat, detoxifies some foods that are poisonous when
eaten raw, kills parasites and bacteria, and it softens the cell walls of plants to release
their stores of starch and fat. Since cooking freed up time, the body of the great apes
shrunk from a barrel-shaped trunk to the narrow-waisted Homo sapiens. Additionally, by
keeping the body warm at night, fire made fur unnecessary and without fur hominids ran
further and faster after prey without overheating. In conclusion, Wrangham says fire and
cooking have fueled an evolutionary pathway. Nina Jablonskis UV hypothesis helps me
understand race and skin color by knowing that variation in melanin production arose in
different populations adapted biologically to different solar conditions around the world.
That is why at the poles the skin in lighter than near the equator and at high altitudes
where is generally darker. After knowing what I know from these issues and hypothesis, I
know that our bodies have adapted for a reason and I will not always assume that raw
vegetables are more beneficial than cooked vegetables. A plant-based diet is just as
important as an animal-based diet. I was on the fence of going vegan or vegetarian
because some articles and family members have said it is better for your body, but from
Wranghams cooking hypothesis I know that taming fire will disrupt our evolutionary
pathway and an essential food group should not be restricted from our diet.