Digesting sweet corn

Rolo Tomasi

Is it true that the human digestive system can't deal with sweet corn so it passes through pretty much untouched or is it just a myth?

Mate of mine told me this last night claiming that he heard it on the radio. I cant say that I believe him. Might start an experiement.

..but what, if anything, have you heard regards to the above?

Gordon

I found an interesting link on Google that states sweet corn takes 3 hours to digest.

Link.

Presumably some people digest it and some don't depending on their metabolism/digestion rate. I would hypothesise that if one has a tendency to eat fast and not take time over digesting things - their stomach and intestines wouldn't take the time to digest the food to a maximum. This is pure speculation however, I am not a doctor. But if it is true, and you don't want to see bits of sweetcorn in your poop - take time eating your food and chew your food more than you normally do.

Didn't the Victorians drum it into their children that every mouthful of food had to be chewed 100 times. (or I exaggerate?)

Cookie

You have never eaten sweet corn? It's a pretty cheap experiment

http://www.unani.com/digestion_time_of_foods.htm

Rolo Tomasi

You have never eaten sweet corn? It's a pretty cheap experiment

Thats the problem with first posts, you never get a chance to make another one.[

Here's a semi-interesting link.

http://www.hp-h.us/p/zardoz/bodily/417095.htm

apparently we cant digest the skin of the individual kernel.

Makaveli

Originally posted by Gordon
I would hypothesise that if one has a tendency to eat fast and not take time over digesting things - their stomach and intestines wouldn't take the time to digest the food to a maximum.

I wouldn't say this is correct. I'm not a doctor either, but how does the stomach know how fast something was eaten.

Gordon

Maybe the knowledge in the brain that you are going to wolf your food down really quickly will tell the saliva glands to only produce a large quantity of saliva for a short time. Maybe the stomach works on a similar basis, or one that is told by the brain, or one that evaluates on a given saliva ratio? I dunno. It does know that it is getting a specific amount of food in one go as opposed to that specific amount of food in a much longer go surely. It's not just big pot of acid is it?

Once the food is in the stomach does it only have a certain amount of time before it shifts stuff to the intestines or does that depend on how much the food is broken down?

sceptre

Originally posted by Gordon
Didn't the Victorians drum it into their children that every mouthful of food had to be chewed 100 times. (or I exaggerate?)

They did (or at least some similar large figure (probably a multiple of some religiously significant number (I'll guess a multiple of 40)).

And it was bull.

Even a piece of bread takes so long to be converted by the rather weak amylase in saliva that chewing it a thousand times doesn't do the deed. It isn't so long ago that I tried chewing a lump of bread for half an hour, spitting out some of the remainder every ten minutes and testing it with iodine. Not quite done even then (and there aren't all that many people who chew their carbs for thirty minutes)

That's why our intestines produce amylase as well. Carbohydrates really get converted down there. Not in the stomach either. Small intestine. Almost pointless chewing the stuff at all except that it breaks it down into smaller pieces which makes the conversion easier and quicker. Find yourself a Junior Cert science student who actually studies - they'll be able to tell you all about it and probably use more sciency language than I've done.

secret_squirrel

Originally posted by Gordon
I would hypothesise that if one has a tendency to eat fast and not take time over digesting things - their stomach and intestines wouldn't take the time to digest the food to a maximum.

Basic chemisty suggests this is probably true - the faster you eat the less you chew something so the bigger the bits are.

The bigger the bits the slower your stomach will take to digest them and the higher the possibilty things will get moved on before they are ready.

mmm is this conjouring up loverly images or what?

woosaysdan

ummmmmmmmmmmmmm corn on the cob with butter melted over it and black pepper

patch

I saw somewhere that sewage treatment plants are great to look at, due to the vibrant green and red tomato plants growing there. The human body can't break down tomato seeds at all, and they thrive in manure. So there.