How can we digest a seemingly huge variety of foods at the same time?
I was at a wedding function and there were all kinds of foods, milk based, solids, hot, cold, meat, desserts and of course raw meats and veggies. It boggles my mind how our intestine can digest all of these if eaten at the same time. How did we get to this? I don’t seem to know any other species capable of this.
In: 1
Those foods are made up of a relatively small number of types of molecule. Most of the molecules in food are starches, proteins, or fats, and your digestive tract contains enzymes that attack those whole classes of molecule. Specifically:
* Your saliva contains amylase(s), a (class of) enzymes that break down starches. Usually you don’t chew for long enough for this process to complete, but this breakdown is why starches taste sweet.
* Your gastric juices (“stomach acid”, but acid isn’t all it is) contain pepsin, an enzyme that breaks down proteins.
* And then your upper small intestine contains bile from your liver (which breaks down fats) and pancreatic juice (which contains multiple enzymes that break down all three of fats, proteins, and starches).
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