New, exciting research suggests that chimps are a lot more like humans than we previously thought. Not only do chimps create spears to hunt with, offer sex in return for food and make dolls to play with, but they also have the brain capacity to cook their food. There is only one problem; they don’t understand how to use fire.
A recent study done by Harvard evolutionary biologist Alexandra Rosati and Harvard psychologist Felix Warnekin suggest that chimps have all the same mental capacity that humans do when it comes to cooking, and they have the desire to cook as well. Both authors completed nine experiments on chimps to evaluate their thinking when it comes to cooking food.
One such test proved that chimps are more inclined to choose cooked food over raw food
Another exciting experiment proved that chimps even understand the process of “cooking” food. Scientists showed chimps raw pieces of food, placed the food in an oven and then pulled out the cooked food to give the chimps. Soon, the chimps were placing their own raw food into the oven as well. In this case, however, the oven was really just a box with already cooked food in it, because the researchers didn’t want to harm the chimps in any way.
Scientists report that whenever the chimps would put the raw food in their “oven” they would get really excited about the process and the result.
Even more impressive is the chimpanzees’ similarity to humans when it comes to patience, or lack of it; however this impatience was put on the back burner when it came to the deliciousness of cooked food. Chimps would forego immediately devouring their food, walk across the room and hand it to a scientist to be “cooked.” They resisted the temptation to immediately chow down, even though their self-control is a lot less contained than our own.
Scientists were astounded at the capacity that chimpanzees have in regards to cooking food. Not only do chimps have the capability to recognize the cooking process of food, but they prefer to eat cooked food as well.
