eli5 : Why can’t we (humans) eat wood? It contains glucose, and termites can eat it for example! (Even if raw wood would be pretty hard to chew, we could mix it down into some kind of paste or powder, so idk)
In: Biology
>it contains glucose
Pay attention to the ose part of that. That particular one is a monosaccharide, mono meaning singular(chain). There are also disaccharides meaning two chains. Lactose is one of those(galactose + glucose).
Celulose is a polysaccharide and poly means many. So our digestive system has nothing to handle that many chains. Fleetwood mac wrote a song about it.
The takeway is that certain plants that bear ‘fruit’ or ‘veg’ have also enclosed their seeds with it. Its a clever way for them to break up some of those chains for us, leading to far less necessary digestive prowess, and a free amount of fertilizer for their seeds on the way out.
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