When you eat something greasy, you can feel it on your lips and around your mouth. That can get washed away if it’s external to your body with soap and water. What I’m dumbfounded by is how our bodies can seemingly “wash away” that greasiness from our mouths, throat, stomach, intestines, etc… How is it done?
In: Biology
Soap solubilizes fatty substances and water washes it all off (soap is soluble in both, due to it having hydrophobic and hydrophilic parts). Our GI system is similar, it has enzymes that break down the fatty molecules into simpler smaller parts (not much though) and then bile is secreted into the duodenum which solubilizes those components similar to soap, then they get absorbed into the blood (the epithelial cells process the fat and package it into spheres where the wall is made of protein, cholesterol, phospholipids, etc, called chylomicrons, which go to the blood and are processed further by liver and so on). We also have peristaltic movement, which is a rhythmic mechanical wave of smooth muscle contraction that goes from your esophagus all the way to your colon, and this, along with whatever the GI tract secretes (saliva, acid, bile, enzymes etc) moves along the food to your rectum.
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