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Title: If plants capture light energy and convert it to chemical energy stored in sugar and other molecules Post by: oldcollegelady on Oct 22, 2010 If plants capture light energy and convert it to chemical energy stored in sugar and other molecules. If this was correct, then wouldn't all plants taste sugary and sweet? spinach and lettuce doesn't taste sweet. Most veggies don't or grass. Fruit does though. thanks.
Title: If plants capture light energy and convert it to chemical energy stored in sugar and other molecules Post by: bio_man on Oct 22, 2010 Hey oldcollegelady, welcome.
All plants that undergo photosynthesis produces sugars (carbohydrates). Before we can go on to explain this, lets think of things that contain carbohydrates - fruit juice, potatoes, leaves, bread, etc. All these things have one thing in common - they come from plants (for bread: wheat). Bread is full of carbohydrates (sugars); the sugar that is most abundant in bread is amylose. In contrast, the most abundant carbohydrate in fruit juice is glucose. When you look at the chemical structure of amylose (the carbohydrate), it is made up of interconnecting glucose molecules. When glucose molecules are linked, as in amylose, it loses its sweetness. This is why bread (wheat) doesn't taste sweet. Interestingly, if you were to put saliva on a piece of bread and kept it on the counter, the piece of bread would end up tasting sweet if you tasted it in an hour. This is because an enzyme in our saliva breaks the amylose in the bread into single glucose molecules, which we just learned are sweat whenever they are not linked to one another. So the bottom line, oldcollegelady, is that not all carbohydrates are sweet. The word sugar is typically used to describe a carbohydrate that is "sweet", but not all carbohydrates are sweet. Carbohydrates in leaves are not sweet, but they get converted into sweet carbohydrates (called sugars) when they enter the plant's fruit. I blame this misunderstanding on websites/textbooks that loosely use the word sugar and carbohydrate. Bio_man 8) Title: If plants capture light energy and convert it to chemical energy stored in sugar and other molecules Post by: oldcollegelady on Oct 24, 2010 thanks so much
Title: If plants capture light energy and convert it to chemical energy stored in sugar and other molecules Post by: bio_man on Oct 24, 2010 Anytime :).
Bio_man 8) |