Re: Name that enzyme challenge!!

Hi,
The polymer cellulose is broken down into its monomers of glucose catalysed by the enzyme Lysozyme, as an example of enzyme action. Cellulose is component of fruits and veggies.
Bananas are often consumed during endurance activities and are claimed to be an excellent source of magnesium and potassium. But bananas are not magic. Banana is a good source of carbohydrate for endurance activities. But unripe, or partly ripe bananas have only a small to moderate amount of digestible starch. A green banana, for example, is almost indigestible.
The starch of unripe banana is called ‘resistant starch’. This means it is resistant to the enzymes in the gastro-intestinal tract that normally break down starch into absorbable carbohydrates. The table shows data on the digestibility of bananas. You can see that only fully ripe bananas (full yellow with little brown spots) are completely digestible. The digestibility of banana starch increases with ripeness: this is caused by the presence of enzymes in the banana itself. During ripening these enzymes break down the resistant starch into well-absorbable sugars.

All that I am trying to demonstrate here is that you may both be right in part. EV, you might be right that all of the enzymes involved in the final stages of digestion that happen inside the body are produced and excreated by the body. However, Lapis and Garcia are at the very least right that the enzymes in food are important in preparing that food for our bodies to digest it. Every fruit that I can think of at the moment (and that's certainly a limited number and not comprehensive) gets sweeter as it ripens. As the materials in the fruit are broken down through the action of enzymes contained in the fruit to convert the cellulose (and I'm sure other materials I'm not familiar with since I'm not a comprehensive expert by any means) into it's component glucose monomers. This glucose is much more easily digested and absorbed by the body than the original cellulose was. And as stated in the other article, that can be found at http://www.lvrc.org/food.rtf ( the first source was http://homepages.enterprise.net/caistorg/c_lyso.html ) in some cases the material present in the food is actually almost indigestible before it is broken down by the foods own enzymes. Thus I think everyone in this discussion has a good point. I also think we should try to find information on Neo2's point about the tonsils. In the mean time, lets keep the comments civilized and not drag all Science into the mud pit on this one. Take care all and see you later, Mike Tweet