EMULSIFICATION a process that allows lipids—
To carry out their functions in the body, most dietary lipids must first be digested. A small amount of fat digestion takes place in the mouth and stomach (via enzymes called lipases), but most occurs in the small intestine. However, a problem must be overcome for digestion to proceed. Fats cannot mix with water because lipids are not water soluble; the fat tends to clump together in the intestine’s watery environment. The body’s solution to that problem is emulsification.
LIPASE enzyme that removes fatty acids from the glycerol backbone of triglycerides
Emulsification aids digestion by breaking up large fat globules into smaller droplets so that fat-
Once inside mucosal cells, fatty acids and monoglycerides (which, as their name implies, contain only one fatty acid chain) are reassembled into triglycerides. (INFOGRAPHIC 6.5)
Why might someone who has had their gallbladder surgically removed need to be careful to avoid consuming excess fat?
The gallbladder aids in the digestion of fat by storing bile.