Chimpanzees

[Sully]

They eat a raw omnivorous diet. Meat, nuts, fruit, etc. Anybody study chimps?  I once watched a video where scientist rewarded them with m&ms. That's horrible.....

[Realist]

It would be nice to take a trip to their natural habitat and taste the food they eat. I think their main staples are nuts and raw figs.

[xylothrill]

Once they get out into the savanna though, they become more carnivorous - much as early humans had to.

http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/general-discussion/for-first-time-chimps-seen-making-weapons-for-hunting!/     

Craig

[Sully]

Once they get out into the savanna though, they become more carnivorous - much as early humans had to.

http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/general-discussion/for-first-time-chimps-seen-making-weapons-for-hunting!/     

Craig

I seen a video where they also hunted in the forest. They had organized positions to hunt. Some where the blockers, others, were the go getters. It was really interesting. They killed the monkey they caught by hand. They ate just about everything, I think even the eyeballs.

[Metallica]

you have to remember a Chimp spends hours each day on just eating (because of the raw foods) where as a human can eat 1-2 meals a day of cooked food..

it takes a chimp hours of eating raw foods to get enough energy, a human can eat hundreds if not thousands of calories in a meal or 2 by cooking there food

thats the difference between humans and chimps

cooking saves us massive amounts of energy.

although we dont really need that energy anymore since we are domesticated and do not need to survive

[Kristelle]

This has nothing to do with cooking but all to do with the type of food one eats. Chimpanzees typically eat a high carbohydrate diet and that's why they eat more frequently. I eat my meat (only meat, no carbs) raw and I'm only hungry once or twice daily. The same goes for many on this board who eat raw meat.

[Metallica]

most vegetables need to be cooked which gave humans a huge advantage for energy and as far as meat. every culture eats cooked meat and has been doing so for possibly 1.5 million years...

on an episode of man vs wild, he said he needs to cook his meat, this will give him more energy and wont drain him down as opposed to raw meat which takes more energy to digest and will slow him down; fish / eggs are great foods in there raw state as with fruits, nuts, seeds; but im a firm believe paleo man got most of there calories from cooked meat / vegetables supplemented with some raw fish, eggs, fruits, nuts, seeds and raw some vegetables.

from my own experience i have found i need modest amounts of cooked meat to avoid the feelings of fatigue, dizziness, anxiety; decent amounts of cooked meat keep my mind clear and energy up

this is all my opinion and experience with Raw paleo diet; each to there own .

[Satya]

You may want to read up on the advent of cooking more.  Truly, the evidence for cooking hearths is not found until about 40k ya or so.  It takes a tremendous amount of intelligence to understand, control and eventually start fires.  Check out this article on our sister site:

http://www.rawpaleodiet.com/advent-of-cooking-article/

Even when you do find evidence for fire use, you cannot jump to the conclusion of cooking, as warmth and keeping predators away are very common uses for fire.  Also see this research on fire technology in early humans:

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/106631/was_the_emergence_of_home_bases_and_domestic_fire_a/

Also note that all traditional diets, even in modern times, contain some raw animal foods.  Finally, more calories are obtained from raw meat than cooked, so where is the advantage to cooking in that respect?

[Metallica]

i agree that traditional people ate a good amount of there foods raw, but also a large amount was cooked.

i think 70% raw works well for most people.

i think its safe to say we been cooking for 500,000.. and before that even most of are meats were decayed, and putrefied and some raw.

basically its hard for me to believe any human being a 100% raw fooder.

i have had times to spend in the wild and take classes and lets just says its almost impossible to eat all raw foods.

[Raw Kyle]

I'd like to meet the person who decided eating cooked meat takes less energy to digest than raw. I can easily down about 1000 calories or more of meat and fat and organs raw and feel very light in the stomach, if I eat cooked meat I feel sluggish. Even more so with vegetables.

I mean we've all seen the tables of nutrients lost during cooking, who's the idiot who says you get more nutrition after cooking? Ya maybe you can pound down a Big Mac in a minute but I hardly call that good nutrition.

[boxcarguy07]

Yeah, I can easily down a pound of raw ground beef and still feel light whereas I know that same pound of cooked ground beef would leave me feeling fuller.

[Satya]

i agree that traditional people ate a good amount of there foods raw, but also a large amount was cooked.

i think 70% raw works well for most people.

i think its safe to say we been cooking for 500,000.. and before that even most of are meats were decayed, and putrefied and some raw.

basically its hard for me to believe any human being a 100% raw fooder.

i have had times to spend in the wild and take classes and lets just says its almost impossible to eat all raw foods.

Hi Metallica,

500kya for widespread cooking is a bit further back in time than is generally accepted in the anthropological community methinks.  And again, raw meat has more calories in it than cooked, so there is no advantage to cooking meat like there is for cooking tubers, which are otherwise completely indigestable raw.  Decaying meat is still raw, it just has more in the way of microbial constituents. 

And there are many people on board who are 100% raw most, if not all, of the time.  I am not one of them, however.  I eat the majority of my foods raw, but I have met with some resistance from my husband concerning raw meat, and rather than always prepare 2 different meals, I eat some cooked food.  I do try to keep it low temp slow roasted or braised.  But I crave the raw animal foods now.  There is no doubt that humans are the only creatures to cook, and while we may be able to tolerate it to an extent, I do not think cooked food is by any means optimal.  The one food I do enjoy cooked and find value in is bone stocks, as the minerals from the bones become available through simmering for a day or so.

You say you have survival training.  Have you ever tried to light a fire without matches or other technologies that are not available in nature?  If so, how long does it take, and have you cooked all foods you desired to eat cooked using these self-started fires?

Will chimps learn to cook, I wonder?  If they do, will they end up with bad teeth like us?

[Metallica]

it takes lots of time to start a fire, but its not my nature; i would imagine ancient people were extreme hunters and fire starters..

we can also gather data that modern hunter gather tribes completely cut off from the modern world do indeed cook a large amounts of there foods and still maintain excellent health.

also the people i have come in contact with either on a raw vegetarian diet or raw paleo diet, i have found very few that have made it a few years on raw food diet. most go back to modest amounts of cooked foods.

dont get me wrong raw animal foods and plants definitely is needed, but i don't think its key to optimal healthy and longevity. i believe a 100% cooked fooder can be as healthy as a 100% raw fooder; and i have seen this on many occasions.

i thought about putting it to the test myself doing a 100% raw food diet for 6 months and following up with extensive blood work and then do a 6 month 100% cooked diet and do a follow up exam

[xylothrill]

i believe a 100% cooked fooder can be as healthy as a 100% raw fooder;

Disregarding calorie ratios and veganism,  I can attest that ANY cooked food leaves me hungrier than raw animal foods.

I believe the body will naturally crave any kind of food until the limiting factor of said food is met, whether that limiting factor be calories, minerals, vitamins, or their co-factors. I could not eat enough cooked food, even if I was full - I'd want more and it'd always screw up my digestive system nonetheless make me even more fat!

Craig

[TylerDurden]

Disregarding calorie ratios and veganism,  I can attest that ANY cooked food leaves me hungrier than raw animal foods.

I believe the body will naturally crave any kind of food until the limiting factor of said food is met, whether that limiting factor be calories, minerals, vitamins, or their co-factors. I could not eat enough cooked food, even if I was full - I'd want more and it'd always screw up my digestive system nonetheless make me even more fat!

Craig

I quite agree. Like so many people on previous cooked-food diets, I would find that I would be able to eat vast amounts of cooked-foods and never feel sated - this was particularly bad with highly processed carbs like crisps(I believe you Americans call them chips, I think?) where I would get massive feelings of hunger(or rather cravings) no matter how much I ate of them. The eating of cooked and processed foods is , of course, one major reason(other than lack of exercise) why people in the West are so obese, as they always feel hungry(no doubt because of cravings for nutrients missing in their cooked-diet) - and the higher the cooking-temperature and the higher the level of processing, the worse the obesity-rate becomes.

Re energy-levels:- I always feel sluggish after eating any cooked-foods(only time I felt sluggish while eating 100% raw was when I occasionally did something wrong  with my diet such as including raw dairy (to which I'm allergic), not eating eating any organ-meats or something equally stupid - otherwise I have no issues) - while I agree that many turn back to cooked-foods, in most cases this is due to social reasons as raw-meat-eating is so frowned upon in today's  society that it becomes extremely difficult to do 100% raw - though there are actually quite a number of families doing 100% raw (Primal Diet) in the States since the Primal Diet started in 1997, despite this huge pressure.

Re cooked-food requiring less time to digest:- Actually, cooked food takes much longer in the stomach to digest than raw food, and since cooked food has fewer calories than raw, it provides less energy. There's a study from the University of California, mentioned in numerous sources, that showed that the more bread was cooked, the longer it stayed in the stomach:-

http://www.healthwalk.com/?TabId=521

Re comment that one doesn't need to spend so much time on food when eating cooked food than with raw:- This is, of course, nonsensical  since cooking involves a huge amount of time wasted re setting up hearths/spits etc. and then waiting for the food to be heated up, unlike with raw (palaeo) foods. And the claim re chimpanzees is not valid as chimpanzees, living off mainly things like leaves and plants and fruits(only 7% animal food in the form of monkeys and termites) need much longer to digest their foods to rid the veg of its antinutrients than humans would on a raw-meat-/raw-fruit-based(and therefore antinutrient-free) diet - interestingly, I've heard that gorillas depend much more than chimpanzees on relatively indigestible plant-food like leaves, so have to spend much more time chewing and digesting than chimps.

Wrangham has made some incredibly foolish comments re this area, such as his claim( http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=cooking-up-bigger-brains )
 that Homo Erectus(and by implication raw foodists) would have to chew raw meat  for 5 to 6(!) hours a day just in order to get enough calories to survive or that Homo Erectus would need c.11 to 12 pounds of raw veg/fruit a day(or 6 pounds of raw meats and raw plants a day) just in order to survive - this is ridiculous as plenty of Raw-Animal-Foodists, myself included, have been able to survive with ease on much, much less than that each day. As long as Wrangham cites such absurd figures, he will continue not to  be taken at all seriously by more eminent Palaeoanthropologists.


Re Bear Grylls:- I should note that Bear Grylls has been cited as a total fraud by a number of sources:-

http://www.outdoor-weblog.com/50226711/bear_grylls_a_fraud.php

and he  only eats those bits of live animals for the camera - he is, by no means, a raw-animal-foodist as we understand the term.

[goodsamaritan]

I'm into raw paleo because I'm trying to optimize my body, improve my look, improve my performance.  Those tribes cooking food have to cook their food and that's not optimal.  I want optimal.  I do know as most raw foodists have experienced, that it takes me just half the amount of raw animal foods to make me feel full compared to cooked.  And cooked food makes me too full and sleepy, but that doesn't happen with raw food.

Cooked food is so so.  Raw food is optimal.  We are educated enough today to make the optimal choice.

[Metallica]

thank you all for the great feedback...

[Raw Kyle]

thank you all for the great feedback...

Is there something specific you're looking for on this forum? Because it seems you have made up your mind against the diet that is being discussed here. If you need validation in your current regimen just look at your health.