Slaving away in the kitchen is often viewed as a chore but it could be making you smarter as new research suggests cooking helped the human race to evolve, casting a shadow over early theories that give raw meat the credit.

Learning to cook food helped in human evolution, study shows
Cooking allowed ancient men and women to improve their intellect and physique (Picture: Alamy)

It also questions the way calories are counted and diets measured in a modern-day society. Scientists found meat and potatoes provide far more energy when roasted than eaten raw â a discovery that suggests the mastery of fire changed everything.

Before then, humans had been eating raw meat pounded with stones but the discovery of cooking â which makes food easier to digest â saw our ancestors evolve into taller creatures with larger, more complex brains.

Prof Richard Wrangham, who carried out the research at Harvard University, said: âFor the first time, we have a clear answer to why cooking is so important cross-culturally and biologically.

âIt gives us increased energy, and life is all about energy.â

Researchers came to their cookery conclusion after tracking the energy levels of two groups of mice.

The rodents were fed diced beef and sweet potato but one lot was raw while the other was cooked.

According to the findings, published in the National Academy of Sciences journal, the cooked food created bigger, more active mice, regardless of whether the food was meat or vegetable.