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Fire 🔥 and the Brain 🧠 : How Cooking Shaped Humans | AMNH
amnh.org/explore/science-topic
Compared to chimps, humans have shorter digestive tracts, weaker jaws, and smaller teeth. So how do we get enough calories to run our bigger bodies and energy-greedy brains? 

The answer, says Harvard human evolutionary biologist Rachel Carmody, lies in those big brains. In the course of our , we used ingenuity to outsource digestion, moving part of the process outside our bodies. When you cook a hamburger or a sweet potato, you’re not just making it more delicious—you’re actually kickstarting , breaking down the muscle or plant cells so that your body has easier access to the . 

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