Never Mind the Bullocks, Here's the Science by Karl Kruszelnicki Page A
Authors: Karl Kruszelnicki
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g of raw lemon pulp) and quite acidic (pH 2-3, thanks to the citric acid).
However, some people claim that lemons will cure everything from leaking bile ducts and stomach ulcers to smallpox and AIDS, with appendicitis, cardiac palpitations and the common cold thrown in. As always, the ever popular ‘sexual weakness’ is on the list of potentially treatable woes.
And yes, also included on the list is the ability of lemons to magically dissolve away fats.
According to biochemists, when a fat is broken down into its constituents, the ‘ester bonds’ are broken, leaving behind three fatty acids and one glycerol molecule. But to do this, you need either a strong hydroxide, or a strong hot acid. Lemon juice is an acid. It is easy to make your lemon juice hot—by using, for example an oven, a stove top, a microwave or a hot poker. But it is definitely not a strong acid. If you heat it up, you just get a hot, weak acid. Therefore, lemon juice simply cannot break down fats.
Lemon Juice Removes Mercury From Fish!
Nope, it doesn’t.
It has been claimed that lemon juice could remove mercury from fish. It would supposedly release mercury from its bound state, allowing it to be wafted away on the wind once it had been converted to a volatile state. Unfortunately, the research by Dr J.N. Morgan and his colleagues at the National Exposure Research Laboratory of the US Environmental Protection Agency in Ohio showed that this did not happen.
But it would have been nice if it had…
The Zing Phat Info
There’s no denying that lemon juice on fish adds zing, but unfortunately there are no fat-fighting benefits to be had from it.
A typical molecule of fat showing its structure.
Twist in Myth
In fact, if the myth were true, and if lemon juice could break down fats, it would produce more kilojoules, not fewer. It would do this via two pathways—saving your body from having to burn kilojoules, and then enabling more kilojoules in your gut to cross into your bloodstream.
In the first case, under normal conditions, your body has to manufacture the strong internal acids that can break down fats. It takes many kilojoules of your metabolic energy to make these strong acids. These kilojoules are then subtracted from your daily total. But if lemon juice really did break down fats, you wouldn’t have to make these strong stomach acids. If you didn’t burn up extra kilojoules to make these strong stomach acids, you would have these extra kilojoules left over, and they would add to your waistline.
In the second case, just imagine that you have eaten a very fatty meal, and the fat is sitting in your gut. There are times when this fat does not end up on your waist. Suppose that you have eaten so much fat that you get a minor bout of diarrhoea. In this case, some of the fat exits at the other end into the toilet bowl—which means that it did not get into your bloodstream and then onto your waist. The medical name for this is ‘steatorrhoea’—abnormallyfatty stools which leave the fatty residue sometimes found in your toilet bowl.
But if lemon juice breaks down or dissolves the fat in food, the big collections of fat have turned into many smaller collections of fat—with a much larger surface area. The larger surface area means that they are more easily absorbed from the gut. Once you break down fats, the fatty acids and the glycerol do not magically vanish into a black hole, never to be seen again. No, they are still in your body, and are ultimately broken down into kilojoules which, once again, appear on your waistline.
If you really want to get rid of the obvious fat in meat, it’s easy: get a knife and slice off the visible fat. And for fish, most of the fat comes from frying it in batter or crumbs. So get a fork and pick off the fatty batter or crumbs, or simply grill the fish.
Fat, Juicy Lemon Lie
So how did this myth start? Well, nobody really knows. Perhaps it arose because lemon juice has some useful properties. For
However, some people claim that lemons will cure everything from leaking bile ducts and stomach ulcers to smallpox and AIDS, with appendicitis, cardiac palpitations and the common cold thrown in. As always, the ever popular ‘sexual weakness’ is on the list of potentially treatable woes.
And yes, also included on the list is the ability of lemons to magically dissolve away fats.
According to biochemists, when a fat is broken down into its constituents, the ‘ester bonds’ are broken, leaving behind three fatty acids and one glycerol molecule. But to do this, you need either a strong hydroxide, or a strong hot acid. Lemon juice is an acid. It is easy to make your lemon juice hot—by using, for example an oven, a stove top, a microwave or a hot poker. But it is definitely not a strong acid. If you heat it up, you just get a hot, weak acid. Therefore, lemon juice simply cannot break down fats.
Lemon Juice Removes Mercury From Fish!
Nope, it doesn’t.
It has been claimed that lemon juice could remove mercury from fish. It would supposedly release mercury from its bound state, allowing it to be wafted away on the wind once it had been converted to a volatile state. Unfortunately, the research by Dr J.N. Morgan and his colleagues at the National Exposure Research Laboratory of the US Environmental Protection Agency in Ohio showed that this did not happen.
But it would have been nice if it had…
The Zing Phat Info
There’s no denying that lemon juice on fish adds zing, but unfortunately there are no fat-fighting benefits to be had from it.
A typical molecule of fat showing its structure.
Twist in Myth
In fact, if the myth were true, and if lemon juice could break down fats, it would produce more kilojoules, not fewer. It would do this via two pathways—saving your body from having to burn kilojoules, and then enabling more kilojoules in your gut to cross into your bloodstream.
In the first case, under normal conditions, your body has to manufacture the strong internal acids that can break down fats. It takes many kilojoules of your metabolic energy to make these strong acids. These kilojoules are then subtracted from your daily total. But if lemon juice really did break down fats, you wouldn’t have to make these strong stomach acids. If you didn’t burn up extra kilojoules to make these strong stomach acids, you would have these extra kilojoules left over, and they would add to your waistline.
In the second case, just imagine that you have eaten a very fatty meal, and the fat is sitting in your gut. There are times when this fat does not end up on your waist. Suppose that you have eaten so much fat that you get a minor bout of diarrhoea. In this case, some of the fat exits at the other end into the toilet bowl—which means that it did not get into your bloodstream and then onto your waist. The medical name for this is ‘steatorrhoea’—abnormallyfatty stools which leave the fatty residue sometimes found in your toilet bowl.
But if lemon juice breaks down or dissolves the fat in food, the big collections of fat have turned into many smaller collections of fat—with a much larger surface area. The larger surface area means that they are more easily absorbed from the gut. Once you break down fats, the fatty acids and the glycerol do not magically vanish into a black hole, never to be seen again. No, they are still in your body, and are ultimately broken down into kilojoules which, once again, appear on your waistline.
If you really want to get rid of the obvious fat in meat, it’s easy: get a knife and slice off the visible fat. And for fish, most of the fat comes from frying it in batter or crumbs. So get a fork and pick off the fatty batter or crumbs, or simply grill the fish.
Fat, Juicy Lemon Lie
So how did this myth start? Well, nobody really knows. Perhaps it arose because lemon juice has some useful properties. For
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