Cheese
Another example of enzymes in the food industry is in the production of cheese. The myth of how cheese came to be originated thousands of years ago with an unknown sheppard who had put milk in a new goatskin bag that he had made out of the stomach of a young goat. At lunch time when the sheppard had went to drink out of the goatskin bag he had realized that the milk was now chunks of solid matter in a thin watery liquid. This was due to a enzyme called rennin. The enzyme rennin breaks up the protiens in milk and seperate them so the end product is chunks of cheese called curds and a thin watery liquid called whey. In retrospect I think this story could have some truth to it. I find this story is believable because Rennin is found in the stomach linning of young animals. In industry most of the rennin they get is from cow stomachs. The enzyme rennin is a very reactive enzyme that will quickly break down the milk protiens. The reason that this enzyme is used in industry is because of how much work, money, and time it will save. Rennin is so reactive that in twenty minutes four pounds of rennin can turn 20,000 pounds of milk into cheese.
