I guess re: your job you could ask your Aunt how you could help.
Yea, this would also work well. About to start a new week and will attempt to be more proactive
Re: liver, I was thinking along the same lines in trying to puzzle out (mainly for entertainment purposes, as I enjoy puzzling out things) why carnivores and even traditional human hunters tend to eat the liver right on the spot after a kill and frequently first thing. Liver is indeed highest in carbs of all parts of the animal, I believe, and it has been reported here that the glycogen depletes rapidly.
Ha, I love this. You made a post similar to mine with more questions than statements. I never feel like I can get enough answers. Thanks for asking all the questions, I really get a lot out of others inquiries. I’m going to take some wild guesses on your questions as clearly and always I’m far from even a novice.
On the other hand, the !Kung cook their kudu liver. Would that also deplete the glycogen?
My guess is that cooking would ‘kill’ the cells and thus preserve the remaining glycogen in the meat but at the same time make it harder on the body to process it much like cooked fats and proteins.
If intense anaerobic bursts is the purpose of the glycogen, why do wolves tend to drink water and take it easy after a kill, instead of running around, fighting, playing, etc. (or am I wrong on that)?
Well, eating glycogen is not going to all of a sudden give you an energy rush, that’s what refined carbs are for. The glycogen has to be deposited in the muscle first and I doubt this mechanism is the same as how insulin works with glucose. I would assume after a kill it would be necessary to rest and relax and let the digestive system work. Basically, it doesn’t give you energy immediately, only on demand during a short intense burst for a hunt.
Does the glycogen store really well and not deplete in their tissues after they've eaten it? Do wolves somehow know, whether instinctively or through training, not to use up their glycogen until they need it for a hunt?
Glycogen levels should remain stable (or deplete slowly) throughout the day even if they are casually moving around following prey. I would guess they use a combination of fat and glycogen for their non-hunting activity, probably mostly fat and then switch to using mainly glycogen for that small amount of time necessary to kill their prey.
Humans have enough free ATP in the muscles during intense activity to last 2-3 seconds and then additional creatine phosphate to last for another 3-4 seconds and then its when glycogen slowly takes over as the predominate energy source and its then that glycogen becomes a big factor. I have searched around quite a bit for this stuff because I was very worried when I went zc that I would not have the necessary glycogen in the muscles to play the sports that I wanted to play.
Could there be another reason for eating liver preferentially and quickly after a kill? Liver is also high in micronutrients, such as A and D3. Do those deplete rapidly after a kill?
I don’t know whether vitamins would deplete rapidly, but eating the liver first is something worth looking into. Maybe its just the fact that the liver is the most valuable so why let your mates get it first when it would be more beneficial to you to eat it.
I found a little overview of glycogen depletion here-
http://meat.tamu.edu/conversion.html Coincidentally, I went to undergrad at A&M, Whoop!
In dying muscle, lactic acid accumulates and lowers pH.
Within 24 hours after death
(1) glycogen -------> lactic acid
(2) muscle pH: 7.0 -------> 5.6 (because of lactic acid)
(3) muscle color: purple changes to bright red or pink (pH 7.0 -------> 5.6)
More on glycogen depletion while alive
Glycogen concentration goes down.
Factors involved in this: exhaustion, exposure to cold, excitement, sex (bullock), sudden feed withdrawal, sickness, show steer.
Solution: Proper handling and prevention of stress best way to reduce incidence.
Anywhere where “fight or flight” kicks in glycogen is going to be used.
They list glycogen at a normal death to be 1% of meat and 24 hours later at .1%
Ups...made a mistake. Liver glycogen in average human is only about 100g, making it 7% glycogen not 20. Average amount of glycogen in human muscle tissue is 350g.