Food Nutrition & Health

Grade 10

The Human Diogestive System

 I AM RICE

My name is Rice. I am a good source of Carbohydrate. I am primarily a starch composed of a

mixture of polysaccharides: 20% amylose (non-branched polysaccharides) and 80% amylopectin
(branched polysaccharides). I can be broken down into maltose and then to glucose when
digested thru enzymatic hydrolyses. Once I am in the mouth, I am mixed with saliva containing
salivary amylases (enzymes): the beta amylase and alpha amylase. Here, my digestion starts.
Both amylases catalyze my digestion into maltose. The alpha amylases break the glycosidic bond
of my amylose chain into smaller polysaccharides and the beta amylases break the reducing parts
of my amylose chain to yield maltose. As I pass down the esophagus, thru peristalsis movement,
my digestion continues until I reach the stomach. In the stomach, the salivary enzymes are
inactivated or destroyed by the acidic gastric juices, so my digestion temporarily stops. Some of
my undigested parts (undigested starch) after around two to four hours, continues to move down
into the lumen of the small intestine where my digestion starts again. Catalyze by the enzymes
pancreatic amylases, the undigested part of me (starch) is digested into maltose. Along the small
intestine I, as maltose (this time), am finally digested into glucose by the brush border enzyme,
maltase. Here my digestion ends and as glucose, I am absorbed thru hepatic portal vein and goes
into the liver where metabolism (at cellular level) starts. After series of biological reactions, I am
now your power to do things- Energy- in the chemical form, Adenosine triphosphate (ATP).