More on enzymes.

I got some pastured frozen Beefalo--a rib steak--at Union Sq. market in
Manhattan. It was delicious, but tough. Taking a clue from my cat and the
orangutans I saw in Borneo, who chew on  food and spit out what they
don't want, I sat down and cut the beef into small pieces and chewed each
one thoroughly. It took almost an hour to eat the steak. Having a
lot of dental work done lately--I hope my teeth last :-). But I noticed
after chewing each piece for a couple of minutes that most of it--I spit
out some--got very tender. So it seems the live enzymes are working in
the mouth to digest it even before it gets to the stomach. Perhaps my
Paleo ancestors ate this way.

While chewing, I flashed back to the lab and the methods we used to
analyze enzyme activity. We put the tissue in a glass (glass=tooth
enamel) homogenizer and ground the tissue at 4C in a cold room. The
grinding breaks cell and lysosome walls and frees the enzymes
(grinding=chewing). The cold prevented the destruction of enzymes from
the heat of friction. Then to the homogenate we added substrates, usually
radioactive so they could be measured later (substrate=food protein, fat,
etc.), and some co-factors (co-factors=vitamins, minerals, etc.), and we
put the homogenates in flasks and set them on a shaking tray in a water
bath at physiological temperature (water bath=mouth, stomach, etc.,
shaking=chewing, peristalsis). No cold room needed in nature, since the
substrates are in the food which goes right into the mouth. At the end of
an hour or so (reaction time=digestion time in the body.), we dumped in
conc. HCl to denature and end the reaction. HCL in the stomach may not be
strong enough to end the reaction, since more food gets digested in the
intestinal tract, so this is not a parallel. I mention it because the
reaction time or digestion time does not seem to be very long. What do
you think? Did science ever invent anything? I doubt if we're that smart.
We just copy nature, probably subconsciously.

My best, Ellie