h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Where the participants aware of the order of (fat) content being delivered in the mri trials?

i mean 'were' (duh)

Hi Treenfan and welcome to h2g2. Normally you expect someone to ask a question like this and get loads of interesting replies.

I'm sorry but I didn't watch the programme that this question seems to refer to, maybe if you say a bit more about your query here, you might trigger off some conversation.

Oh, and because h2g2 has many members from all over the world, they are not able to watch the BBC, so that would limit your potential responses.

hope you have fun here! Do join in some other conversations

I didn't see the show and can't reply to questions about its fat content
but to the overall question 'did cooking make us human' I'm sure there are
a lot of possible speculations from others who have not seen the show either.

It is an interesting question.
And I wonder if that's because we have been trained of late to consider
high cuisine and culinary skills as marks of 'civilised' people. Working from
that brainwashed cultural belief most people would say that cooking also gives
us dominion over the beasts.

It is likely that early man used his brain to consider the variables (a balance of
time and temperature is still the main ingredient in any good dish) of taste and
digestibility. On learning that cooked meat preserved longer he enhanced his life-
style and (as a happy natural selection side-note) his life expentancy by
'unknowingly' removing bacteria in the cooking process.

So I guess I;m voting yes to the question in the subject line.
Not the blind bit, the cooking human bit.

~jwf~

Cooking could have helped to make us 'human' because it releases more available calories from more foods, and (so the reasoning goes) allows those extra calories to be put towards larger brain size. I think there's quite a lot of evidence not contradicting the idea, it's very widely accepted in a vague way, and it makes sense.

It's certainly part of the story. But you could also ask "Did being human make us cooks?" and it would also be valid. I missed the programme, but the title seems to typify a lot of what is wrong with many Horizon programmes at the moment - take a small, uncontroversial idea and try to present it as a major breakthrough.

I also didn't see the programme. I no longer bother with Horizon. I used to love it because, although like any tv programme there will be a degree of over simplification, there was always that sense of yes, we are over simplifying, but here some facts that we are presenting as best we can. I always was left with the feeling of, yes this is something interesting..and if I want to know more, more in depth research is needed.

Now it seems to be presented as some neat little gimmicky story; at least it was the last time I watched it, which involved a group of people with various mental health diagnoses. The group were put through a series of tests over a weekend, a la reality tv style, and the two scientists had to guess, based on the results, who was normal and who had what diagnosis.

The programme ended with the scientists receiving the results..with lots of 'ooing' and 'ahhing' with regards of 'Oh I would never guessed that one etc'. IMO it was pure cr@p.

I haven't watched Horizon since.

>>...haven't watched Horizon since. <<

Can't blame ya for that considering.
Nothing worse than pop-psych being presented as entertainment.

But you do cook, dontcha?
Can you confirm that cooking, even just brewing up a nice cuppa,
is an important and integral part of your humanity? And, that
without a decent cuppa you might not be quite so human?


There is an image in people's minds of sharp fangs chewing on bloody
raw meat that somehow defines the manners of beasts and separates
us from them because we prefer to garnish our flesh with gravies and
sauces and mints.

~jwf~

>There is an image in people's minds of sharp fangs chewing on bloody
raw meat that somehow defines the manners of beasts<

Don't talk about the French like that I mean have you ever had a beef steak in France? and forgotton the French for 'medium rare'. So it comes more or less straight from the abatoir on a plate. It was and I thought I liked my steak rare..(Actually I quite enjoyed it <beast&gt

This may be a good time to mention that assorted mounted warriors variously known as Huns, Mongols, etc., used to lay slabs of raw meat under their saddles. At the end of the day the meat had been thoroughly tenderised and even marginally 'cooked' by the heat from the horse and the friction of riding. I believe this is the source of the term 'steak Tartar'.


~jwf~