Question

Feeding french fries (a starchy food) to a goat will probably be uneventful, as the goat will be able to digest this plant compound. Feeding french fries to your cat (a dedicated carnivore) is not a good idea, since it cannot efficiently digest starch. What is the biochemical reason for why one animal is able to digest starch, and another not being able to do so?

Answer 1

French fries containing a lot of carbohydrate in the form of starch which is a polymer of glucose. In starch one glucose molecule is linked with other molecule of glucose with O-glycosidic bond or linkage.

Goat a herbivore which can easily digest the french fries because it intestinal digestive enzyme called ptyalin or salivary alpha amylase which can digest or breakdown or cleaves this large polymer starch into simpler glucose molecules thereby making free residues of glucose which is utilised by the cells to generate chemical energy (ATP) and this chemical energy is used to do mechanical work by the goat like running, playing, eating and many more activities. While the cat can;t produce this digestive enzyme in large quantity therefore they cannot digest the french fries instead of it they can digest proteins (meat/egg/milk) very easily because they secrete many proteases which digest the protein into amino acids and derive the energy.