The surprising reason you should not double (this is not just bacteria)

My daughter eats oatmeal for breakfast – just cooked, rolled oats with sugar and milk. She loves it, but a slow cutlery. Like all 13 years old, a few minutes before the school bus arrives for breakfast. There are inevitably leftover. “I promise to eat in the evening,” he said recently before he got out the door. When it arrived in the evening, we pulled the remaining oatmeal from the refrigerator, but the texture changed – it seemed wet. Meanwhile, a second part of the untouched extra oatmeal, which I rescued from the pot that morning, was still thick, but was quite hurt. That seemed rather strange.

I didn't know the only one who noticed this, right? So I started looking for information after cooking food after cooking and asked many questions about various cooking places over the years. In almost all cases starch or starch were recorded with thickening recipes:

• Why did I get the rest of my remaining wet?
• Why do all thick sauce and soup turn into a thin liquid when I eat them?
• Why does my soup become thin in the middle of serving?

People often answered several questions: What starch did you use to thicken the vessel? How much did you add? How long did you cook? Rather, the original poster answers suggest that these investigative lines were deadlocks.

So, why did these dishes thin? No one seemed to know for sure, but in the conversation someone was floating a suggestion that made everyone uncomfortable: Did you dip in the food?

This is a question that is inevitable “EWW!” Factor-and-two-person immersion is like the back, and most of us retreat from the idea that the bacteria of the coarse mouth will mix anything that you do not have to consume. However, if we can only place Gag reflex for a break for a second, this suggestion is very interesting, because what it refers to is not just the answer to this food-thin mystery. Important digestive abilities of saliva.

Without saliva, eating and digestion are much more difficult and less effective. For example, saliva mucosa is essential for swallowing. When chewed, mucus and water in saliva convert dry or crumbly foods into a soft, sticky knot, called bolus, facilitating swallowing. This helps prevent suffocation and protects the esophagus from damage caused by coarse food particles.

But mucus is not the main point here. Saliva is mostly water – about 99%. The remaining 1% is a mixture of mucosa, proteins and electrolytes. There are enzymes among the proteins that promote the breakdown of food into smaller pieces, facilitating the digestion of the body. The most popular enzyme of saliva is saliva amylase, and this is critically considered a mystery of thinning and twice dive foods.

Saliva -amylase: I have a job

The task of saliva amylase is to interrupt α-1.4 glycoside bonds in the starch molecules to form smaller units such as maltose and dextrins. It is not surprising that it works in the mouth; After all, where saliva is located. Surprisingly it will continue to work outside The mouth, the oatmeal, for the potential shock and fright of the oat flour, the soup impacts and the coastal guests, were crowded everywhere around the dive bowls.

But this cannot be surprised because he has previously seen amylase enzymes in work outside their planned environment. When moisturizing the flour to produce dough, the amylase enzyme in the flour breaks the starch into smaller units to feed the yeast, start the fermentation process and produce gases that cause bread rise. Traditional alcoholic beverages, such as Chicha beer and Masato, even use saliva to start fermentation, cutting the starch into smaller pieces that can be fermented by yeasts. Enzymes take the mantra very seriously that “you have a job”. Like robots programmed on an infinite loop, they continue their work until they eventually become inactive, whether they are denatured by changes in pH or temperature or by dehydration.

Testing saliva -amylase on starch -containing foods

Now that we know that amylase can continue to work outside the body, the question is what kind of food would it affect and under what circumstances? To try this, I needed some starch thick food. Here are the ones I tested:

1. Oatmeal
2. Cream mushroom soup
3. Cream Potato soup
4. Cheese sauce
5. Creamy mac and cheese

In all these cases, the vessels were led partially or completely starch molecules, which is a simple and cheap method for less liquid food. Operates by heating the starch containing a starch; As the temperature exceeds 60 ° C (60 ° C) 140 ° F, the starch molecules begin to unfold and absorb water in a process called gelatinization. The originally cloudy mixture transforms into a translucent gel and traps the water molecules between the starch.

I compared one starch -conscious food, which remained intact (as a control) with another set where I licked with a spoon and swirled around the food. I repeated the licking and swirling process three times. After 15 minutes of waiting, I examined the results.

Why 15 minutes? Researchers estimate that saliva -amylase is approx. It remains active in the body for 15 minutes before the foods and languages ​​we chewed are completely mixed with the stomach juices, where the acidic environment denates the enzymes. This time it is roughly the same for the period needed to complete the meal. Therefore, whether inside or outside the body, we need to see the effects within this time frame. All dishes were kept at room temperature as the enzymes work best at body temperature, 90-98 ° F (32-37 ° C).

When the enzymes have done their work, the smaller split molecules lack the thickening power of the longer starch molecules that the individual food started. So, if my hypothesis was correct, the food I received should be thinner than the control version.

Result

Within 5 minutes I started seeing some thinning in the fungal and potato soups. 15 minutes, the results were quite significant for both soup and oatmeal. It was pronounced and it was easy to visually distinguish the control, as opposed to amylase. Salt -amylase had a clear effect on the textures of these three foods in a short time.

However, cheese sauce, MAC and cheese have shown very little change. Why didn't the hypothesis succeed in thicker food? Probably because thicker foods are partly dependent on the proteins in the cheese. Because saliva does not contain enzymes that break down proteins, this can limit the effect. In addition, the increased viscosity of cheese sauce can slow down the enzymes, reducing their ability to split so many starch molecules in a given time frame.

Does that mean you should never double?

The enzymes work and affect. But if you cook your family and check the salt level 18 times during cooking, you don't need 18 spoons. Enzymes are incredibly effective in what they do, but they are easily interrupted. You do this daily. For example, when using Lime juice to the apple and avocado, it inhibits the polyphenol oxidase enzyme that prevents tanning. Similarly, vegetables are used large heat before freezing to quickly deactivate enzymes. Refrigerators also slow down the activity of the enzyme.

So, when you feed your family, don't worry about licking the tasting spoon. Enzymes require a Goldilocks requirement set and temperature to optimize operation. The more they wander from their optimal zone, the less effective. For example, if the spoon is boiling porridge, it makes them completely inactive. Similarly, tomatoes or other acid soups and stews denim the enzymes.

But if you find a suspicious runny nose, porridge or Roux thick sauce, or dive into the office refrigerator or a festive party, it is worth staying away … because someone's skewers have worked hard!

October 2024