Biology 7
How fats are broken down





Firstly, when we chew our food, the food is broken down into smaller pieces. Hence, saliva has more area to act on. However, our saliva only contains salivary amylase, which cannot break down nor digest fats.

Fats digestion will take place in the small intestine, the duodenum. In the duodenum, all classes of food are being digested. The bile will produce bile salt and it will be transported to the duodenum through the bile duct. The bile salt break down the fats into fatty droplets, *it does not digest fats*. This process is called emulsification. The pancreas will subsequently produce pancreatic juices, which contains several digestive enzymes. One of the enzymes are lipase.

Fatty droplets will be digested by the lipase and into glycerol and and fatty acids. The ratio is 1:3 respectively.


*Note that bile IS NOT an enzyme* (: