If, however, the grain be subjected to prolonged heating with water, partial solution takes place. The entire mass becomes mushy and permeated with moisture. When such a mass is brought in contact with the digestive fluids, it mixes or disintegrates with the fluid, just as molasses would mix with water. The result is that the whole mass of material is subjected to the action of the digestive fluids at once, with the result that the mass is passed from the stomach too quickly, causing congestion in the small intestines, or the whole is arrested, and fermentation and decomposition take place. In normal digestion, the enzyms are continuously secreted for a period of several hours. They begin work on the outside of the food particles, dissolving the substances gradually. Thus the enzyms are continuously used up, and the digestion proceeds slowly, but naturally, yet as fresh enzyms are continuously being secreted to act on the newly exposed surfaces, active and complete digestion is constantly taking place. [Sidenote: Predigested "breakfast foods"] The alleged predigestion of certain proprietary foods has neither scientific basis nor virtue. That the juices of some fruits which are already in the form of glucose, can be immediately absorbed into the tissues without any digestive process, does not prove that the mushy cooking, malting, and other forms of so-called predigestion are beneficial. The so-called "predigested breakfast foods" are not and cannot be prepared by any process for final digestion, but are in an intermediate state between starch and glucose. They are composed of a semi-soluble starch, gummy dextrin, and perhaps a little maltose which has a tendency to disturb and to interfere with the normal process of digestion. [Sidenote: Comparative digestibility of cooked and uncooked starch]