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Heat changes molecules

Why is this interesting and why should we care?

You ever try to grow a seed after heating it? Everyone knows that if you heat something too much you kill it. We all take that for granted. We learn that at a young age and simply don’t question it. Well, that is what we will do now.

Why did heat kill the seed?

And, probably more important:

Did the heat kill the seed?

Both questions are kind of puzzling. Why would anyone question how the seed died?

To understand this a bit better, let’s look at the first signs that a seed provides to indicate that it is alive. That process has a well known name, germination. Here is what the Wikipedia has to say about germination:

Germination is the process in which a plant or fungus emerges from a seed or spore and begins growth. The most common example of germination is the sprouting of a seedling from a seed of an angiosperm or gymnosperm.

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Germination is the growth of an embryonic plant contained within a seed; it results in the formation of the seedling.

So, if the seedling can germinate, we know that the seed is alive. I know this next part is going to sound really simple, but what makes a seed germinate? Yes, I know. This is another one of those things that just about everyone also takes for granted. At the same Wikipedia link, we see:

Seed germination depends on both internal and external conditions. The most important internal factors include temperature, water, oxygen and sometimes light or darkness.

As it turns out, the requirements needed for that little seedling align pretty well with what we humans need to stay alive. But let’s continue to focus on the seedling.

If you look closely at what the Wikipedia says about the effect that water has on germination, we find some interesting points:

Water – is required for germination. Mature seeds are often extremely dry and need to take in significant amounts of water, relative to the dry weight of the seed, before cellular metabolism and growth can resume. Most seeds need enough water to moisten the seeds but not enough to soak them. The uptake of water by seeds is called imbibition, which leads to the swelling and the breaking of the seed coat. When seeds are formed, most plants store a food reserve with the seed, such as starch, proteins, or oils. This food reserve provides nourishment to the growing embryo. When the seed imbibes water, hydrolytic enzymes are activated which break down these stored food resources into metabolically useful chemicals.[2]

So, if the seed is alive, when it takes in water and oxygen at the right temperature and with the correct amount of light, enzymes are activated which break down the stored resources into usable building blocks that the plant can use to grow.

What I find interesting is that the Wikipedia can always take a simple subject and confuse it with a lot of big words. What are hydrolytic enzymes? And what are metabolically useful chemicals?

From this link, we find a hint regarding what a hydrolytic enzyme is:

In biochemistry, a hydrolase is an enzyme that catalyzes the hydrolysis of a chemical bond.

Looking closer, Hydrolysis is:

Hydrolysis is a chemical reaction during which molecules of water (H2O) are split into hydrogen cations (H+) (conventionally referred to as protons) and hydroxide anions (OH−) in the process of a chemical mechanism.[1][2] It is the type of reaction that is used to break down certain polymers, especially those made by step-growth polymerization. Such polymer degradation is usually catalysed by either acid, e.g., concentrated sulfuric acid (H2SO4), or alkali, e.g., sodium hydroxide (NaOH) attack, often increasing with their strength or pH.

Hydrolysis is distinct from hydration. In hydration, the hydrated molecule does not “lyse” (break into two new compounds).

Something worth noting here is that when something goes through hydrolysis, it is a chemical reaction that splits down certain polymers. Also, form the seed perspective, it’s using enzymes to perform this function. (What we don’t cover here is the reference to pH. That is a article for another day!) Yet, what is a polymer?

A polymer is a large molecule (macromolecule) composed of repeating structural units typically connected by covalent chemical bonds. While polymer in popular usage suggests plastic, the term actually refers to a large class of natural and synthetic materials with a wide variety of properties.

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Because of the extraordinary range of properties accessible in polymeric materials,[2] they play an essential and ubiquitous role in everyday life[3]—from plastics and elastomers on the one hand to natural biopolymers such as DNA and proteins that are essential for life on the other.

So the addition of water to the seed enables it to put its water sensitive enzymes to work breaking down the stored protein or other long molecules that have covalent chemical bonds. The seed can convert long macromolecules and proteins into what it needs to grow by simply applying water based enzymes.

As a reminder:

 A chemical bond is an attraction between atoms or molecules and allows the formation of chemical compounds, which contain two or more atoms. A chemical bond is the attraction caused by the electromagnetic force between opposing charges, either between electrons and nuclei, or as the result of a dipole attraction. The strength of bonds varies considerably; there are “strong bonds” such as covalent or ionic bonds and “weak bonds” such as dipole-dipole interactions, the London dispersion force and hydrogen bonding.

If you remember from a previous article (Is food another form of light) you’d remember that when the chemical bonds break down, the molecules give off electromagnetic energy (light) in the process. Thus, light is part of the growing process – from the inside out!

So, if I’m following this correctly, the enzymes are the molecules that first go to work in the germination process that will eventually show up to us humans as a growing plant.

Makes sense that we look at enzymes:

Enzymes are proteins that catalyze (i.e., increase the rates of) chemical reactions.[1][2] In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process are called substrates, and the enzyme converts them into different molecules, called the products. Almost all processes in a biological cell need enzymes to occur at significant rates. Since enzymes are selective for their substrates and speed up only a few reactions from among many possibilities, the set of enzymes made in a cell determines which metabolic pathways occur in that cell.

Like all catalysts, enzymes work by lowering the activation energy (Ea‡) for a reaction, thus dramatically increasing the rate of the reaction. Most enzyme reaction rates are millions of times faster than those of comparable un-catalyzed reactions. As with all catalysts, enzymes are not consumed by the reactions they catalyze, nor do they alter the equilibrium of these reactions. However, enzymes do differ from most other catalysts by being much more specific. Enzymes are known to catalyze about 4,000 biochemical reactions.[3] A few RNA molecules called ribozymes also catalyze reactions, with an important example being some parts of the ribosome.[4][5] Synthetic molecules called artificial enzymes also display enzyme-like catalysis.[6]

Enzyme activity can be affected by other molecules. Inhibitors are molecules that decrease enzyme activity; activators are molecules that increase activity. Many drugs and poisons are enzyme inhibitors. Activity is also affected by temperature, chemical environment (e.g., pH), and the concentration of substrate. Some enzymes are used commercially, for example, in the synthesis of antibiotics. In addition, some household products use enzymes to speed up biochemical reactions (e.g., enzymes in biological washing powders break down protein or fat stains on clothes; enzymes in meat tenderizers break down proteins, making the meat easier to chew).

Looking a little deeper into the enzyme link at Wikipedia:

Like all proteins, enzymes are made as long, linear chains of amino acids that fold to produce a three-dimensional product. Each unique amino acid sequence produces a specific structure, which has unique properties. Individual protein chains may sometimes group together to form a protein complex. Most enzymes can be denatured—that is, unfolded and inactivated—by heating or chemical denaturants, which disrupt the three-dimensional structure of the protein. Depending on the enzyme, denaturation may be reversible or irreversible.

There they go using another collection of relatively unknown words.  Let’s look at denatured:

Denaturation is a process in which proteins or nucleic acids lose their tertiary structure and secondary structure by application of some external stress or compound, such as a strong acid or base, a concentrated inorganic salt, an organic solvent (e.g., alcohol or chloroform), or heat. If proteins in a living cell are denatured, this results in disruption of cell activity and possibly cell death.

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When food is cooked, some of its proteins become denatured.

Hey, that is the link I was looking for! We should eventually come back to that.

First, let’s look back at our question: did the heat kill the seed? Logically, it would seem that the heat denatured the proteins that make up the enzymes that are used to break down the stored resources that the seed needs to grow.

Looking at this a different way, after applying heat, the seed has no means of convert the stored resources (proteins and carbohydrates) into useful building blocks for growth. Because of this, the seed is effectively locked in a state of not being able to use its energy reserves.

Ultimately, the heat killed the seed. But why the heat killed the seed has to make you wonder. If heat can denature the proteins that are needed by the seed to life and grow, what kind of ramifications does it have on the human body? Doesn’t the human body need enzymes – just like the seedling does? More importantly, if heat can denature enzymes, which are protein molecules, it would hold that heat would change all types of protein molecules.

We see what heat does to proteins, what about carbohydrates?

Let’s look that up:

A carbohydrate is an organic compound with the general formula Cm(H2O)n, that is, consists only of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, the last two in the 2:1 atom ratio. Carbohydrates can be viewed as hydrates of carbon, hence their name.

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Monosaccharides can be linked together into what are called polysaccharides (or oligosaccharides) in a large variety of ways. Many carbohydrates contain one or more modified monosaccharide units that have had one or more groups replaced or removed. For example, deoxyribose, a component of DNA, is a modified version of ribose; chitin is composed of repeating units of N-acetylglucosamine, a nitrogen-containing form of glucose.

And from the polysaccharides link we find:

Polysaccharides have a general formula of Cx(H2O)y where x is usually a large number between 200 and 2500. Considering that the repeating units in the polymer backbone are often six-carbon monosaccharides, the general formula can also be represented as (C6H10O5)n where 40≤n≤3000.

This polysacchraride is not simple sugar!

Yet these longer molecular structures don’t taste all that great, nor do the digest readily until they are broken down into smaller pieces. Some enzymes can perform this work, but the fastest process is heating. The heating process breaks the chemical bonds that attach the longer molecules into smaller ones.

This can be seen in the simple process of cooking a potato. Does it taste better raw, or cooked? Anyone can tell you that it tastes sweater after cooking. That’s because the longer starch molecules have been broken down into simpler sugars with register as sweet to the taste budds.

What’s also interesting is that plants have developed molecules that humans have a hard time with. Specifically, if we look up Cellulose, we find:

Cellulose is an organic compound with the formula (C6H10O5)n, a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of several hundred to over ten thousand β(1→4) linked D-glucose units.[2][3]

Cellulose is the structural component of the primary cell wall of green plants, many forms of algae and the oomycetes. Some species of bacteria secrete it to form biofilms. Cellulose is the most common organic compound on Earth. About 33 percent of all plant matter is cellulose (the cellulose content of cotton is 90 percent and that of wood is 40-50 percent).

It’s a really long polysaccharide that forms the cell wall in plants. It’s something that we don’t digest well. Cows and horses do a much better job handling this molecule with the help of microbes. Yet, the human solution to getting around this problem is to cook it.  Applying heat breaks apart the cell wall which makes what’s inside the cell available to the body. Yet heating also denatures other elements of the cell.

So, what do we do?

It would seem that heating destroys key elements of our food. Elements like enzymes that we need to break down other molecules. At the same time, our bodies can’t get to all the ‘food’ in what we eat unless we can get past the larger polysaccharides that block our digestive way.

If we want the best of both worlds here, we’re going to have to get to what’s in the cell without ingesting the larger indigestible molecules. Off hand, I can think of two techniques:

  • Juicing

Here we simply squeeze what’s inside the cells out. If done with little friction, which causes heat, the results should be pure and highly digestible by the body.

  • Blending

Similar to juicing, a good blender will apply enough force to the cells to get them to break apart rendering a mixture that still contains the fibrous material along with the ‘nectar’ found inside the cells.

Both of these techniques seem like great alternatives then heating.

This investigation still leaves a number of unanswered questions.

If heating denatures proteins (destroys them) and you consume them. Can your body still use them effectively? Do these fractured pieces of molecules find function in the body? Or, do they create a situation like looking for an intact glass in a pile of glass fragments? (A nearly impossible task for surviving enzymes.) Also, might the body actually use the denatured proteins thinking that they were the real intact versions? What might this cause?

The more I learn about how heat changes molecules, the more I ask myself is it really worth consuming denatured food? Are there other alternatives like juicing and blending – or simply eating the food unaltered? What might be the best choice?

I guess I’m going to have to investigate whether or not the body can create its own enzymes and how that is done. On top of that, I’ll have to look into mucus and see what that’s made of. I heard it was undigested proteins – the above information could support that idea. Pausing and reflecting on the above, I can understand why so many people have runny noses!

The real question is what are you going to do? It seems pretty clear to me that we should be consuming foods with unaltered molecular structures. I’m going to make it a point to do so.  What about you?

Dave’s Yoga Goals

Yoga is a selfless selfish act. It is a self improvement activity that not only improves your own moment of now, but it also positively affects others. It’s self manifested self improvement that overflows into that which is part of your environment. All that you touch, say and think is influenced by yoga and, at the same time, that which you feel is enhanced.

The selfless part is what flows through you into your environment. Ultimately, it is anything that you create. That selflessness is experienced in every word that you choose to speak and every way in which you choose to resonate in your environment. It is your interaction in life. It is that action that actually makes you feel good about the choices that you make.

The selfish side of things is what you get in return; enhanced feelings. The subtle things in life go from being overlooked and invisible to noticed and experienced. Things that you might have been numb to before, become pronounced and energetically influencing after practicing yoga for a while. The insensitivities that we build up to things like ‘curse words’ or ‘vulgar actions’ are no longer tolerated. The act of yoga aligns the self with the intentions of the self so as to amplify your own vibration to the point where you can feel the harmony and discord of other people and things that enter your perception.

I have been open to yoga for as long as I can remember. The problem was that I never made time for it. In January, nearly a year and a half ago, I committed to giving yoga enough time that I could say “I do yoga” with some reasonable level of belief. I started with an open mind and approached class like every good student should – I accepted being the student.

I took nearly nine months of practice to get to the point where I no longer hurt after the hour workout. I can’t remember how many days my butt hurt for hours, but that is mostly behind me now. At about a year, I finally started to feel my body giving in to the postures. It was at that time that I started to really feel good about my practice.

It was at about that year threshold that I really started to notice those new sensitivities referenced above. I am looking forward to seeing what the next year will bring.

Now, before stating my goals, I have to share a little inspiration with you. A few months ago, one of my yoga instructors took a month to attend a yoga seminar. She mentioned Ana Forrest as if everyone knew who she is. I didn’t. What’s a yoga seminar? After that class, the instructor wrote down the name and gave it to me. A few minutes later, I Googled the name and found this:

I watched the entire six and ½ minutes amazed. Upon completion, I promptly clicked on part two:

That, I have to say, is a bit beyond what I’d even imagined for a goal. That is a lifestyle with no time for blogging! Lol…

The simple truth is that a few years ago, I had a view office at work that overlooked a main thoroughfare and everyday, without exception, an old man walked the sidewalk. He always wore a gray hooded sweatshirt regardless of the weather yet he could hardly walk. I’m sure we’ve all seen the old man that struggles to get out of his chair and then, when he walks, he takes little steps while struggling to keep his balance? This guy that walked the sidewalk, not only took little steps, but his spine was warped and disfigured from age. The primary inspiration for me to start yoga was watching that guy struggle to walk the street every day. The best part about it; he was doing it. The worst part about it; I was sitting tensed up at the computer watching him work out his issues.

So, I vow to not be like that. I will have good posture. I will be able to move my hips and walk. I will not have a hard time getting out of a chair as I age. Rather, I will breathe. I will garden. I will be active. I will enjoy the time that I’ve worked so hard for.  🙂

So, to keep it simple:

Physically

  • Perform a balanced handstand for at least 15 seconds

Pretty sure everyone knows what this means. To get there, I’m going to have to be able to do a few more pushups. Lol…

  • Sit Yogi Style

Here is a Half Lotus pose, but I’d like to actually do the full pose. I remember being able to sit that way for a short while as a kid. As I try today, I like the way it straightens out my back. Breathing is a bit easier too.

  • Perform the splits

I’m sure everyone knows this pose, but I’m going with a simple version! Something like this. Nothing complex or I won’t have anything to work towards next year.

  • Perform bird of paradise

Here is a picture. Right now, I’m a ball of shakes as I try to straighten my leg.

  • Comfortably perform the dancer’s pose

Here is one of my instructors (Georgina See the fifth picture down) performing the pose. She makes it look easy.

  • Comfortably Ujjayi breathe throughout a standard practice.

This one might take a little more explaining. The Wikipedia states:

Ujjayi breathing is a breath technique employed in a variety of Hindu and Taoist Yoga practices. In relation to Hindu Yoga, it is sometimes called “the ocean breath”. Unlike some other forms of pranayama, the ujjayi breath is typically done in association with asana practice.

Ujjayi is a diaphragmatic breath, which first fills the lower belly (activating the first and second chakras), rises to the lower rib cage (the third and fourth chakras), and finally moves into the upper chest and throat. The technique is very similar to the three-part Tu-Na breathing found in Taoist Qi Gong practice.

Inhalation and exhalation are both done through the nose. The “ocean sound” is created by moving the glottis as air passes in and out. As the throat passage is narrowed so, too, is the airway, the passage of air through which creates a “rushing” sound. The length and speed of the breath is controlled by the diaphragm, the strengthening of which is, in part, the purpose of ujjayi. The inhalations and exhalations are equal in duration, and are controlled in a manner that causes no distress to the practitioner.

I’m just now starting to be able to breathe this way. I guess if I keep working on it, I’ll get better. Practice makes perfect – right?

That pretty much sums up the physical side of things. What’s more important to me is the spiritual goals. With this in mind, I’ve got goals that go beyond the physical.

Spiritually (during practice)

  • Regularly experience Hu

A couple times now my yoga has taken me to the point where the Hu sound has filled the room. Both times, at the moment of recognition, my awareness cancelled my sensitivity. I’d like to experience that more often – not the cancellation, but the Hu!

  • Be one hundred percent present

For the most part my mind doesn’t wander during class. It’s just went the action and instruction stops. That’s when my mind wonders. I’m going to save that wondering time for before and after class.

  • Give in; no emotional resistance

If I have to cry, I will. If I have to laugh, I will. It’s about the moment and the transformation.

I’m sure I’ll come up with more ideas that I’ll want to express as goals and there’s nothing stopping me from posting those as the thoughts come up. Don’t you just love blogs?

Thanks for letting me share these thoughts with you in this public setting. Keep in mind that if I can do it, you most likely can too!

Share some happy thoughts and make them count!

Humans giving off light

Today, I came across a very interesting article that I have to share. It was posted last summer on the LiveScience website and just found its way to me. It’s titled Strange! Humans Glow in Visible Light.

It looks like scientists in Japan have been able to develop cameras sensitive enough to capture images of visual light emitted from people. The article first states:

The human body literally glows, emitting a visible light in extremely small quantities at levels that rise and fall with the day, scientists now reveal.

I don’t find this strange, but rather view it as it’s about time. If you look back at a previous article that I wrote, Is food another form of light?, you’ll notice that when the body breaks down sugars (or any other molecule that has stored energy) the process releases electromagnetic energy (light). Thus, if the body is constantly breaking down sugar, it’s constantly emitting light, which should be measurable (in some way).

Thus, the scientists went to work to measure the emitted light:

To learn more about this faint visible light, scientists in Japan employed extraordinarily sensitive cameras capable of detecting single photons. Five healthy male volunteers in their 20s were placed bare-chested in front of the cameras in complete darkness in light-tight rooms for 20 minutes every three hours from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. for three days.

The researchers found the body glow rose and fell over the day, with its lowest point at 10 a.m. and its peak at 4 p.m., dropping gradually after that. These findings suggest there is light emission linked to our body clocks, most likely due to how our metabolic rhythms fluctuate over the course of the day.

Faces glowed more than the rest of the body. This might be because faces are more tanned than the rest of the body, since they get more exposure to sunlight — the pigment behind skin color, melanin, has fluorescent components that could enhance the body’s miniscule light production.

So they too might see the connection between digestion and body glow. But here they hide that connection in the fancy term metabolic rhythms.

Yet, I have to wonder about the article’s author’s reference to why the faces give off more light. I would guess that it would have to do with nerve endings or brain activity. The face is just one side of the head. Did they attempt the same experiment having the person face away from the camera? I would be willing to bet that they’d get a similar reading. In which case, the finding would have nothing to do with faces are more tanned, but maybe something like, the brain gives off more light.

It’s good to see articles like this. The body does release light, but I’m still waiting for them (some scientist somewhere) to make the connection between how plants store sunlight in the form of sugar to how the body releases the light as it breaks down the sugar. Or, more importantly, does the body run on sugar or … light?

One day we shall see.

Talent that can’t be hidden

Here’s a Youtube channel that I just stumbled upon again; Sungha Jung. I’m blown away by the number of postings he’s made. At this point, it’s more than 250! If that’s not being productive, I don’t know what is.

In any case, here’s a rendition of Come Together by the Beatles. It’s definitely worth the couple minutes.

Enjoy.

If you liked this, you might want to visit his channel and view a few more.

Building a vibrational pyramid of words

When I think about my childhood and all the philosophical statements that my parents spoke, one of them stands out as being the phrase upon which all others are built. I don’t know why it made such an impression on me. And, in a conversation with my mom today, it turns out that it was a statement that resonated with her as a child. It was a statement that she’d heard and it shaped her life in mysterious ways. That statement is:

If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

That saying is so simple, yet so amazingly powerful.

As a child, I learned that saying in the middle of one of my childish name calling sessions with a sibling or friend. Yet as an adult, the meaning behind the words resonates to create an environment where you’ll always see the cup as at least half full.

If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

It’s always worth repeating and, more importantly, it’s worth practicing.

This particular concept can come down to the actual words that you use. Every word that you choose has a feeling that it will convey and, if it’s accepted as the truth, it will resonate in the listener as the truth until that listener finds a way to perceive the word or words differently. If they are successful at revisiting the words and understanding them from a different perspective, the listener may be able to find that the words that were spoken (at one time in the past) no longer hold up at being the truth.

For instance, here is a phrase that was used against me at one time in the past; “You’re a Q-Tip!” The person that spoke these words empowered them with the emotional intent of an insult. When I heard them, I could easily read the tone of an insult, so the words carried the vibration of being an insult. Yet, the damaging association comes if the listener finds truth in the statement. At the time, for a while, after I figured out what the insult meant, I found a little truth in the statement. (Insult: you’re nothing but a stick with a fluffy cotton head. In other words, you’re a 98 lb weakling and you have no brains.) Sure, I’ve always been tall, skinny, not very athletic and my hair tens to stand on end. By golly, there is a bit of truth in that statement.

So, in the act of accepting that statement, I accepted the vibration intended by the speaker. For a time, I allowed myself to see the truth in the words that were spoken, and in so doing that, the insult resonated within me. I took on that anger. I took on the words spoken by someone else as if they were the truth. I saw myself as a 98 lbs weakling. I saw myself as empty headed.

Today, I view the world from a slightly different perspective. I have experienced the words others have spoken and, with many of them, I have found different truths. It is clear, in the simplest of terms, I am more they a stick with a fluffy cotton head. I no longer resonate with that insult.

The most profound part of this insult example is that the feeling or intent of the words is what shines through and resonates in the listener. That is the vibration that the listener starts to resonate with. That is what the sub-conscious takes on and makes happen. That becomes the truth. That is, it becomes the truth if the listener believes it to be the truth.

The same holds if you speak words of praise. “That is so lifelike, you are an amazing artist!” I’ve also heard words like this that carry a genuine feeling of respect and admiration for a drawing that I’ve sketched. Being the listener, if the words are accepted as being the truth, that feeling generated from the person that spoke them will resonate within you and the sub conscious will ultimately make that feeling the truth. I am an artist. I still carry the confidence spoken in those words with me today.

Now the tricky part is whose to say that the person that hears your words will be able to discern the truth from the lie? In other words, if you say “That color looks awful on you”, will the person hearing those words accept them as the truth and forever carry the association between that color and looking awful in it? Could your words, by chance, forever shape someone’s life so they never wear that particular color again?

As simple as the phrase is “that color looks awful on you”, the ramifications can be significant if the listener accepts your words as the truth.

So now, when I look at the saying:

If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

I think twice about what it is that I’m going to say. I want the words that I speak to generate feelings that uplift and inspire others with vibrations (and thoughts) that strengthen their character and help build a solid foundation upon which they can develop their own understanding of what the truth is.

When words are accepted as being truthful, the associated feeling becomes the foundation of the pyramid that goes into making up what we choose to be.

Lay a solid foundation and build a rock solid pyramid. Choose your words carefully and generate phrases that carry positive vibrations. Those around you will be forever grateful to you for your disciplined approach to speaking.