Question

Both starch and cellulose are made by stringing together many glucose molecules, but starch is easily digested by humans, while cellulose is indigestible. The starch polysaccharide has every bond occurring below the sugar rings while the bonds in cellulose alternate between one bond above the ring and the next below the ring. How can you explain humans' inability to digest cellulose

Answer 1

See explanation

Step-by-step explanation:

The ability of humans to digest starch and cellulose depends largely on the presence or absence of enzymes that can hydrolyze the starch or cellulose linkages thereby making it digestible.

Starch can easily be digested but cellulose can not be easily be digested because human beings lack the necessary enzyme responsible for hydrolysing the beta-acetyl linkages in cellulose. As a result of this, humans do not metabolise cellulose.