If you want to eat grass, you have muscles, do you have four stomachs?
Audit Expert: Wang Guoyi, Postdoctoral Fellow in Nutrition and Food Safety, China Agricultural University
Inadvertently, 2020 secretly added 1, and 2021 the Year of the Ox has arrived
When we think of cattle, we think of "bulls soaring" and "cattle luck", just as we expect for the new year.
In the new year, Tadpole Jun will also be full of cattle, presenting everyone with "the most cattle science".
This is not, today's most cattle science is coming~
Do you know why cows can have muscle when they eat grass, and you have to eat protein powder?
Almost every fitness person will find that it is not easy to train a good muscle, it is not an easy task to get a fitness card, occasionally run, sweat can do. You also need to pay great attention to the diet, you must supplement a lot of protein, to eat meat, eggs or protein powder.
But have you ever wondered why cows can have muscles just by eating grass? If people also have this skill, it is not too easy to want a stylish body.
Belgian Blue Bull with extremely high muscle ratio (from http://pai-hang-bang.com/)
When we "eat grass"
The so-called "eating grass" actually refers to eating vegetables and coarse grains. The main ingredient in our vegetables and whole grains is polysaccharides, one of which is cellulose, commonly known as dietary fiber.
They are components that the human body cannot digest and absorb, so in order to excrete them as soon as possible, the human body will strengthen gastrointestinal peristalsis, and there is also a saying that eating more vegetables or coarse grains can improve constipation.
Moderate dietary fiber is good for intestinal health (https://factdr.com/nutrition/diet/high-fiber-diet/)
However, if we only eat "grass", a large number of non-absorbable dietary fiber pours into the intestine, which will lead to a sharp increase in the number and volume of stool in the intestine, coupled with insufficient carbohydrates, fats, and proteins to provide energy, and the stomach and intestines cannot fully peristalsis, which will not only aggravate constipation, but also cause bloating and abdominal pain.
When cattle graze
When the cow eats the grass into the stomach, there are four stomachs responsible for digestion, they are: rumen, honeycomb stomach, heavy flap stomach, wrinkle stomach, food flows through these four stomach chambers in order.
The function of the rumen is mainly to temporarily store feed and microbial fermentation; the honeycomb stomach is like a sieve, with the feed to eat the heavy objects, such as nails and wires, are present in it; and the heavy flap stomach, it is generally believed that its main function is to absorb water and squeeze the ground feed; but the wrinkled stomach is the real stomach of the cow, it secretes digestive juices, making the chymos wet.
However, the volume of rumen is the largest, accounting for about 80% of the total volume of the four stomachs. This largest stomach is very "lively", containing 600,000 to 800,000 ciliates and 15 to 25 billion bacteria per gram of rumen contents.
Bacteria in the rumen of cows (https://www.sciencephoto.com/media/11329)
Can not underestimate these microorganisms living in the rumen, they are not here to "eat and drink", but dutifully "work", ciliates and bacteria, fungi, etc. can not only decompose sugars such as starch, but also ferment and decompose pectin, cellulose, hemicellulose and so on.
Why can't the human body do things that small microorganisms can easily do?
This is because the molecular structure of cellulose as a polysaccharide is usually composed of β-1,4 glycosidic bonds attached to many monosaccharide molecules.
There is no enzyme in the human stomach that breaks down β-1,4 glycosidal bonds, and the microorganisms present in the bovine rumen produce cellulase, which can break down β-1,4 glycosidic bonds, so cattle can use cellulose.
Cellulase hydrolyzes β-1,4-glucoside bonds in cellulose (https://www.chemicalbook.com/)
Enzymes that can digest cellulose are mainly composed of exonucleated β-dextranase, endonucleated β-dextranase and β-glucosidase, as well as highly viable xylanase.
The human body cannot produce this set of enzymes, and cattle cannot actually produce them, but the microorganisms in the cattle can produce ah.
At the same time, the long digestive process in the cattle, such as rumination behavior, returns the semi-digested food from the stomach to the mouth and chews again, which undoubtedly increases the time of action of the enzyme and can make the enzymatic lysis occur more thoroughly.
Through the role of enzymatic digestion, not only can the indigestible cellulose, hemicellulose, carbohydrates, starch and other substances in the cow body be decomposed, but also non-protein nitrogen-containing substances can be used to become the protein nutrition of cattle.
In addition, ciliates in rumen microorganisms have the ability to break down a variety of nutrients, can convert plant proteins into animal proteins with higher nutritional value, which is why cattle can also grow muscles by eating grass.
Can humans mimic this process?
First of all, not to say that we can't put four stomachs in our bodies, can you imagine coexisting with such a large number of microorganisms?
Microbial fermentation is not just transplanted into the stomach with so many microorganisms, it involves the synergy of more than 3,000 bacteria, yeasts, fungi and protozoa, and the number and activity of each bacterium are interdependent and mutually restrictive.
Once the balance between them is upset because the environment is not suitable, one of the microorganisms may achieve "hegemony" and thus make the body fall into a pathology.
Therefore, for people, eating reasonably and insisting on exercise is the right way for us to gain muscle.