Category: G
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Giblets
Poultry are blessed with two sorts of giblets: the internal—including the gizzard, heart, liver, and kidneys—and the external—including the head, neck, wingtips, and feet. English acquired the word giblet in the early fourteenth century by adapting the French word gibelet, meaning game stew, such stews, made out in the wild after bagging the game, usually…
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Gherkin
A gherkin is a small cucumber pickled in vinegar. The name of this condiment appeared in English in the mid seventeenth century as a respelling of the Dutch name of the pickle, gurkkijn. In turn, gurkkijn was invented as a diminutive of the Dutch gurk, meaning cucumber, which evolved through Polish from the Medieval Greek…
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Garlic
Plants are often named by combining a word that describes the shape of their leaves or stem with the name of a similar plant that already has a name. Thus, spikenard is literally a spike of nard while garlic—less obviously—is literally a spear of leek. With garlic this origin is somewhat disguised because the Old…
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Garble
Although no longer associated with the kitchen, the word garble was originally a culinary term. When it first appeared in English in the late sixteenth century, garble referred to the refuse or chaff left over after spices had been sifted: when you garbled something, you were separating the usable from the unusable. By the late…
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Gut-associated lymphoid tissues (GALT)
A variety of specialized lymph-reticular tissues that line the inside of an animal’s digestive system. GALT include Peyer’s Patches, the appendix, and small solitary lymphoid tissues in the gut. They constitute the intestinal immune system (response to antigens). A term used for all lymphoid tissue associated with the gastrointestinal tract, including the tonsils, appendix, and…
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Guanosine triphosphatases
These are G-proteins (enzymes) which are crucial for growth, movement, and maintenance of the cell’s shape. When active, GTPases are bound to cell membranes (surfaces) by an isoprene molecule (receptor).
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Growth hormone-releasing factor (GRF or GHRF)
Also termed growth hormone-releasing hormone (GRH). A factor that causes the release of growth hormone. It is 44 amino acids in length.
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Growth curve
The change in the number of cells in a growing culture as a function of time. A graph of heights and weights, head circumference, and body mass index of infants and children of various ages. A line connecting the data points produces the curve. Usually the changes in height and weight are shown on the…
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GRAS List
A list of food additives/ingredients considered to be Generally Recognized as Safe, by the American Government’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This list of additives is judged to be safe by a panel of FDA pharmacologists and toxicologists, who base their judgment upon data that is available for each ingredient. In practice, those additives for…
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Granulocidin
A protein produced by white blood cells, which has demonstrated (in the laboratory) an ability to kill a broad spectrum of pathogens.