Biochemistry of cooking and food preparation

CH 4 TRANSPORT INTO THE BODY THE GASTROINTESTINAL TRACT, DIGESTION AND ABSORPTION 

It is not clear how the presence of fibre on partly fermented fibre in the gastrointestinal tract could exert such protective effects but a number of hypotheses have been put forward  

The contents of the rumen pass steadily into the third chamber of the ruminant stomach , the omasum, where the fatty acids, together with water and salts, are absorbed. These fatty acids provide much of the energy for the ruminant but a price is paid virtually all the carbohydrate in the diet is fermented and almost none enters the body. Consequently, glucose must be synthesised to provide lactose in the lactating animals. The lactic and propionic acids are the precursors for the glucose (Chapter 6). It is unclear if some of this glucose is used by the brain of the ruminant. 

Finally, the contents of the omasum, now a thick slurry of microorganisms, pass into the abomasum into which are secreted acid and proteinases to produce an environment corresponding to that of the human stomach. Some of the microflora passing from the rumen to the omasum die and are digested by the acid and the enzymes. This provides the ruminant not only with an additional energy source but with vitamins and essential amino acids that its own tissues caimot synthesise. 

Peter Cleave was a surgeon in the Royal Navy, with no scientific training. He noticed that certain diseases were more prevalent in developed conntries than in nnderdeveloped conntries. These are sometimes known as the Western Diseases . On the basis of these observations he came np with the concept of the saccharine disease (Cleave 1974). 

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