Horizon: Did Cooking Make Us Human

00:00:05 Bacon and eggs for breakfast.

00:03:22 Professor Travis Pickering is on their trail to discover how our species evolved.

00:05:45 They spent most of their time doing nothing other than eating.

00:08:29 They chew long into the night.

00:10:46 I really like a fry-up English breakfast, yeah.

00:13:56 Everything they eat comes from hunting and gathering.

00:17:31 bottom of this hole that we've been watching

00:20:23 But it's not just the tooth enamel which shows a change in the diet of our ancestors -

00:23:02 Oh, that's cool.

00:25:11 Roast dinner, roast chicken, I really enjoy that

00:27:10 is not necessarily the biggest, strongest individuals

00:29:03 over at least a million years from both of these species

00:30:59 suggesting that a very repetitive process had been going on there

00:33:11 which will deteriorate quickly

00:35:36 There's only a certain way to take apart an animal body

00:37:38 how far they go every day.

00:39:44 First of all, we need to feed our model gut

00:41:45 a lot more of that energy release during the digestive process.

00:43:46 enormously more energy.

00:46:06 It takes a little bit of time and effort.

00:47:59 that cooking food has on easing its way through the snake's body.

00:50:04 when we're sitting, our brain consumes 20% of our energy.

00:52:42 OK, I think we're ready.

00:54:47 What's surprising is that a part of the brain normally associated with touch