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From grass to nutrients, a journey into the cow's digestive system: Difference between revisions
From grass to nutrients, a journey into the cow's digestive system (view source)
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==== Extract of the talk given during [[The Soft Protest, re-chewing & Digest| | ==== Extract of the talk given during [[The Soft Protest, re-chewing & Digest|The Soft Protest, re-chewing & Digest]]'s dinner<br>in October 2019 at [http://www.corridorprojectspace.com/artfood/ Corridor project space] in Amsterdam. ==== | ||
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“{…}The cow’s digestive system is a wonderful machine: it allows cows to get energy from an undisputed resource that humans can’t digest: grass. 1/4 of Earth’s land area being grasslands it allowed herds of ruminants to thrive across the Old World, even before mankind domesticated them. | |||
Grazing consists on wrapping the tongue around plants and pulling to tear it — this is the entry that let us access grass energy in the form of milk and meat. Once the tongue swallowed the grass, it ends up in the rumen, the first stomach compartiment, field with the precious microbial fauna allowing recalcitrant plants fibres to be proceed through fermentation. While the liquid portion of food moves from the reticulum to the other compartiments, the solid portion stays in the rumen. It may then be propelled up by the oesophagus to be chewed again, before to be swallowed again: this is ‘rumination’. After grass passed through the 4 compartiments, all nutrients obtained are absorbed in the intestine. | Grazing consists on wrapping the tongue around plants and pulling to tear it — this is the entry that let us access grass energy in the form of milk and meat. Once the tongue swallowed the grass, it ends up in the rumen, the first stomach compartiment, field with the precious microbial fauna allowing recalcitrant plants fibres to be proceed through fermentation. While the liquid portion of food moves from the reticulum to the other compartiments, the solid portion stays in the rumen. It may then be propelled up by the oesophagus to be chewed again, before to be swallowed again: this is ‘rumination’. After grass passed through the 4 compartiments, all nutrients obtained are absorbed in the intestine. | ||