Absorption of Whole Peanuts, Peanut Oil, and Peanut Butter

Abstract

Horace Fletcher, a popular 19th-century food faddist who advocated chewing food twice for each tooth, alluded to the possible dependence of absorption on thorough mechanical breakdown of food.1 However, it is generally believed that chewing has a minor role in the digestion and absorption of food. To study the effect of mechanical breakdown of food on fat absorption, we put subjects on a diet containing one source of fat in three physical forms.Ten healthy persons were assigned to a vegetarian diet that contained a total of 80 g of fat; 76 g was in the form of whole peanuts . . .