How can stomach acid be strong enough to dissolve thin razor blades, but stuff like corn and tomato skin can pass through seemingly completely untouched?

Question

How can stomach acid be strong enough to dissolve thin razor blades, but stuff like corn and tomato skin can pass through seemingly completely untouched?

In: Biology

Answer 1

All the stuff about enzymes etc here is correct. Yout stomach, like most bio systems, is complicated. Here’s a more general chem answer:

“Dissolving strength” is not universal. Different chemicals are good at dissolving different things, and can’t dissolve others.

Acid is good at dissolving metals, not good at dissolving cellulose (like corn in your example). Water is great at dissolving a lot of things (non eli5 water dissolves polar materials), but cannot dissolve many organic materials or fats. Water dissolves sugar but can’t dissolve wood or styrofoam (or corn). Organic solvents like acetone are [great at dissolving styrofoam](https://imgur.com/gallery/Yi7DT4w/comment/108207161), but can’t dissolve sugar much at all.

So your question “how can x be *strong enough* to dissolve this but not that” isn’t applicable because “dissolving power” isn’t just a linear scale that all solvents rank on.