# Do human babies have rennet in their stomachs? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 24, 2009, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-human-babies-have-rennet-in-their-stomachs/482780 "2009-01-24T08:17:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![MerryMagdalen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@MerryMagdalen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MerryMagdalen)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2009, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-human-babies-have-rennet-in-their-stomachs/482780/1 "2009-01-24T08:17:59Z")
Or a rennet-like substance? Ah, the things the boyfriend and I speculate about late at night… ---
**Author:** ![Wiltshire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ea5d25/32.png) [@Wiltshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wiltshire)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2009, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-human-babies-have-rennet-in-their-stomachs/482780/2 "2009-01-24T14:42:30Z")
Apparently yes. According to various cheese-making websites, rennet is an enzyme complex produced in the stomach of _all_ mammals. ---
**Author:** ![Wiltshire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ea5d25/32.png) [@Wiltshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wiltshire)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2009, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-human-babies-have-rennet-in-their-stomachs/482780/3 "2009-01-24T14:51:29Z")
…Breastmilk cheese, anyone? Made with only the purest rennet from specially selected, organically grown free range babies. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2009, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-human-babies-have-rennet-in-their-stomachs/482780/4 "2009-01-24T16:32:03Z")
[Rennin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rennin) > [@](#): > > Chymosin (or rennin) is an aspartic acid protease enzyme found in rennet. It is produced by the cow, in the lining of the abomasum (its fourth stomach). Bovine chymosin is produced nowadays recombinantly in E.coli, Aspergillus niger var awamori, and K.lactis as alternative resource to the one from the cows. The gene is found in humans (on chromosome 1), but it is not in a functioning form. ---
**Author:** ![Wiltshire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ea5d25/32.png) [@Wiltshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wiltshire)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2009, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-human-babies-have-rennet-in-their-stomachs/482780/5 "2009-01-24T17:33:15Z")
But according to [Chymosin | Encyclopedia.com](http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O39-chymosin.html) > [@](#): > > **chymosin** Enzyme in the abomasum of calves and the stomach of human infants […] Now this is confusing. _Only_ bovine and human infants? (the fact that the young of bison, camels, dolphins, elephants, giraffes, hippopotamuses, moose, rhinoceroses, whales, seals and yaks are also called calves doesn’t make this any clearer…) I would think that all mammals have _some_ way to break down the nutrients in their mother’s milk. As usual, it all seems to depend on one’s definitions of this enzyme cocktail. ---
**Author:** ![Darryl\_Lict](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7cd45c/32.png) [@Darryl\_Lict](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darryl_Lict)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2009, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-human-babies-have-rennet-in-their-stomachs/482780/6 "2009-01-25T02:22:38Z")
> [@Wiltshire](#): > > …Breastmilk cheese, anyone? Made with only the purest rennet from specially selected, organically grown free range babies. So, is that how those evil Dutch make baby Gouda? I’m never eating it again! ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2009, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-human-babies-have-rennet-in-their-stomachs/482780/7 "2009-01-25T04:40:59Z")
An observation: When changing a not-too-heinous diaper for one kid or the other, I realized that it looked an awful lot like welsh rarebit (a cheese/beer concoction)… and smelled an awful lot like generic Cheddar cheese. Which, now that you think of it, is basically what it was! Cheese is milk treated with digestive enzymes… and the baby in question was fully breastfed… i.e. was pooping out milk treated with digestive enzymes… No, I have not eaten welsh rarebit since that day, why do you ask? ---
**Author:** ![Dawson10](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Dawson10](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dawson10)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-human-babies-have-rennet-in-their-stomachs/482780/8 "2010-10-28T21:14:51Z")
What I have seen is that rennet is present only in the young of herbivores. Humans have an enzyme, pepsin, which is in our stomach lining in the inactive form of pepsinogen and then is activiated by hydrochloric acid into the active pepsin enzyme. This enzyme is said to coagulate milk in a fashion similar to rennet. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-human-babies-have-rennet-in-their-stomachs/482780/9 "2010-10-28T21:18:47Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > When changing a not-too-heinous diaper for one kid or the other, I realized that it looked an awful lot like welsh rarebit (a cheese/beer concoction)… Did you ever stop to think that maybe you had a magical baby that was excreting Welsh rarebit? Kind of like the goose that laid golden eggs (as [scientifically explained by Isaac Asimov](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A2t%C3%A9_de_Foie_Gras_(short_story)))