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Without reading the book, Anonymous asks

How in the world did every living creature survive for billions of years on raw unaltered uncooked foods and all the sudden it isn't possible anymore?

and then states

I have eaten raw foods exclusively for 8 years and let me tell you cooked food not the way to go. Eat raw foods, lose weight and gain energy rarely experienced in today's cooked food world.

The theme of the book is the answer to the first question, and I hope my review conveys author Richard Wrangham's point clearly.

We are not talking about "every living creature," but rather one particular early hominid or pre-hominid species that developed cooking. The advantages of cooked food for extracting nutrition enabled that creature to evolve a larger brain. By the time that creature had evolved into genus Homo, cooking was part of its cultural environment. As in any case of evolution, what begins as a beneficial circumstance in that creature's environment can become a necessity. Wrangham argues that human survival as a species now requires cooking.

As for the second point, Wrangham does not say that it is impossible for an individual to live on a raw food diet. In fact, today's agricultural and food preparation technology makes it even more likely that a person can find the nutrition needed.

But for the species overall, and for many individuals, becoming "raw foodists" does not appear to be a successful strategy. In my review, I discuss this point as presented by Wrangham:

Even today, when top quality produce is readily available, "raw-foodists" are chronically undernourished. The most extensive research is the Giessen (Germany) Raw Food study of 513 individuals who ate between 70 and 100 percent raw diets. Writes Wrangham, "The scientists' conclusion was unambiguous: 'a strict raw food diet cannot guarantee an adequate energy supply.'" The energy shortage "is biologically significant.... Among women eating totally raw diets, about 50 percent entirely ceased to menstruate."

So the anonymous commenter may be surviving or even thriving on a raw food diet, but according to this book, s/he is an exception, and has apparently become a zealot for the cause.

I am always wary of zealots, and this is certainly no exception.

Fred Bortz
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