Michael:

Papain, I’ve never heard anyone else say it out loud, so I don’t know the proper way to pronounce it. But this is one of my favorites, because it comes from papayas, and I like to eat papayas. I first learned of its existence, because I went to a Brazilian steakhouse, and ate my weight in grilled, marinated meats. Then they brought out a papaya sorbet for dessert. I was in the service industry for eight years. I never saw anything like this when I was doing it, and I didn’t know these things when I was a server. The server explained papaya, and the enzyme, and how when you eat way too much food, like I had just done, that eating the papaya sorbet at the end of the meal could actually be helpful. He said, “It makes it so you don’t go home on your couch, and turn into a bowling ball.”

Kiran:

Yeah exactly, and because you were at a Brazilian restaurant, you probably ate a lot of meat. Right, because there are all this, the Brazilian steakhouse, the gaucho style, and-

Michael:

…the swords.

Kiran:

Yeah, with the swords. I mean, I love that meat, and you go crazy. Keep that card on green, and keep it coming. But papain yes, like you said, it’s from papaya. It’s a very well known enzyme. It is great at tenderizing meat too, so you can use it as a marinade in tenderizing meat. But it’s also very good for digestion, and very important for digestion as well. There’s some good studies on the systemic benefits. It works well with bromelain as well. In formulas where you find papain, you’ll often find bromelain. They do work well together to help with joint pain, and joint inflammation. It’s perfectly safe. Great for digestion, and great as a  systemic anti-inflammatory as well.

Michael:

Cool, and tons of research out there on that one.

Kiran:

Yeah papain is well known, and pretty well researched. Like I said before, enzymes rarely work alone together, so I always like to see formulas that have multiple of these enzymes together, because they all do slightly different things. Or vastly different things, depending on what system we’re talking about. In nature, you would find more of a combination of these things in its natural state. So it’s important to see papain with the bromelain, and trypsin, and those kind of things together.

Michael:

And preferably with guys with swords, and giant things of meat. I would like all of my papain to come with that.

Kiran:

Right.

Michael:

I’d always heard of those places, and I never went to one for a long time, which is horrible. Then I went, and it was like, “Where has this been all my life?”

Kiran:

Oh I know.

Michael:

I think there’s something psychological about all you can eat pricing, because then you feel challenged. It’s weird, I’ve been to Fogo de Chao, and Texas de Brazil, in various cities. The price for the dinner is not uniform.

Kiran:

Oh really?

Michael:

No, it’s completely different.

Kiran:

Oh, okay.

Michael:

Vegas, it was $15 cheaper than it is in Chicago. It’s San Diego, it’s $10 more than Chicago.

Kiran:

Wow.

Michael:

So I found that interesting. But when you’re paying big, top dollar, for this dinner, and you can literally have as much of the meat off the swords as you want, the psychology is, “Well, I’m going to get my $57 worth,” which is a plate like this of meat. So the sorbet comes in very handy.

Kiran:

Exactly. Another note, on another fruit that will help you digest, and there’s an enzyme in this fruit, but it hasn’t quite been commercialized yet, but kiwi. Kiwi has a proteolytic enzyme too, that’s very powerful. In fact, you can take little slices of kiwi, you can marinate meat with it as well, to tenderize it. But if you’ve eaten a lot of meat, like a big burger, steak, whatever, and you don’t have access to papaya, eat a kiwi. It will help you with the digestion as well.

Michael:

I figured that out on my own, actually.

Kiran:

Oh you did? Oh, good.

Michael:

One time I had a bunch of kiwis around, and I had heard some rumor of kiwi being used in a marinade, or something. So I sliced up some kiwis, and threw it on a flank steak. Well, I put a couple other things in there, but definitely there was two whole kiwis I threw in there. It definitely worked. It was very tender. Regarding kiwis, I don’t know how we got on this. Well, yeah I know, but now we’re talking about kiwis. I just recently learned that you can eat the skin of a kiwi. Now I just lop off the ends, and then cut it into slices. I love kiwis, and I never ate them because they’re a pain to peel, and to deal with. You can eat the skin if a little furriness doesn’t bother you. That has reintroduced kiwis into my life.