Why does cooked food offer more energy by bite? Does the heat weaken the bonds making it easier for us to break down and digest ourselves or something?
you know the molecular principles behind digestion, yes? probably?? they're still teaching that in high school, right???
well, in case you need a refresher, I'll address meat specifically: the basic principle is that meat is FULL of useful proteins structures that your body would really like to take and use for its own bits, but there's a slight problem that needs to be dealt with first!
these proteins are FUCKING HUGE.
each protein is a sprawling 3-dimensional molecular structure containing hundreds to thousands of individual atoms, much much too big and also not quite the right shape for your body to repurpose!
and you need to start that blood vessel resurfacing project NOW, the funds were approved LAST THURSDAY for chrissake.
fuckin' contractors. never on schedule.
so what your digestive system does is break the proteins down into their component chunks, via a process called denaturing! the denatured protein loses its structure and unspools itself into a long ribbon, which can be popped apart and taken to wherever those individual proteins need to go in your body.
HEY ED, GET A MOVE ON! THOSE TAURINES NEED TO BE AT THE LIVER ASAP!
and this denaturing process is fairly energy-heavy, so your body is BURNING energy and materials to PRODUCE energy and materials, and just barely comes ahead of breaking even!
at least, if we're talking about raw meat.
see, your digestive system denatures proteins through an expensive chemical system, but it turns out there's a cheap, easy, and (almost) FREE alternative that will do the same thing, no enzymes needed!
heat denatures proteins by its very nature, and we can actually see the process happen if we pay attention!
transparent egg whites turn milky and opaque as their regimentally organized protein structures unspool and tangle each other into uselessness, and red pigment proteins in muscle fibers turn grey as their molecular structure changes so drastically that it reflects an entirely different spectrum of light!
if you're a human being, you refer to this process as "cooking".
so when humans first started chucking chunks of mammoth into the fire way back when, they found they could use the fire to pre-digest the meat into useable protein chunks that take WAY less energy for your body to do something useful with, resulting in a net energy gain in the digestive process even though no extra energy was actually added to the meat!
thanks for listening to my TED talk.
