Eating meat may have kick - started the
evolution of bigger brains, but cooked starchy foods together with more salivary
amylase genes made us smarter still.
Dr. Hardy posits that, based on archaeologic, anthropologic, genetic, and physiologic data, it was actually the coevolution
of cultural use
of fire, cooked starch, and salivary / pancreatic
amylase that afforded the brain the capacity for a quantum leap in
evolution.