Biochemists have long been interested in the chemical\u00a0composition\u00a0of the food of animals. All animals require\u00a0organic\u00a0material in their diet, in addition to\u00a0water\u00a0and minerals. This organic matter must be sufficient in quantity to satisfy the caloric, or energy, requirements of the animals. Within certain limits,\u00a0carbohydrate,\u00a0fat, and\u00a0protein\u00a0may be used interchangeably for this purpose. In addition, however, animals have nutritional requirements for specific organic\u00a0compounds. Certain essential fatty acids, about ten different amino acids (the so-called essential amino acids), and vitamins are required by many higher animals. The nutritional requirements of various species are similar but not necessarily identical; thus man and the\u00a0guinea pig\u00a0require\u00a0vitamin C, or ascorbic acid, whereas the rat does not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That plants differ from animals in requiring no preformed organic material was appreciated soon after the plant studies of the late 1700s. The ability of green plants to make all their cellular material from simple substances\u2014carbon dioxide, water, salts, and a source of\u00a0nitrogen\u00a0such as\u00a0ammonia\u00a0or nitrate\u2014was termed\u00a0photosynthesis. As the name implies, light is required as an energy source, and it is generally\u00a0furnished\u00a0by sunlight. The process itself is primarily concerned with the manufacture of carbohydrate, from which fat can be made by animals that eat plant carbohydrates. Protein can also be formed from carbohydrate, provided ammonia is furnished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In spite of the large apparent differences in nutritional requirements of plants and animals, the patterns of chemical change within the cell are the same. The plant manufactures all the materials it needs, but these materials are essentially similar to those that the animal cell uses and are often handled in the same way once they are formed. Plants could not furnish animals with their nutritional requirements if the cellular\u00a0constituents\u00a0in the two forms were not basically similar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Biochemists have long been interested in the chemical\u00a0composition\u00a0of the food of animals. All animals require\u00a0organic\u00a0material in their diet, in addition to\u00a0water\u00a0and minerals. This organic matter must be sufficient in quantity to satisfy the caloric, or energy, requirements of the animals. Within certain limits,\u00a0carbohydrate,\u00a0fat, and\u00a0protein\u00a0may be used interchangeably for this purpose. In addition, however, animals have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biochemistry"],"Cooking_time":"","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cake.appscodestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cake.appscodestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cake.appscodestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cake.appscodestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cake.appscodestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2042"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cake.appscodestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2043,"href":"https:\/\/cake.appscodestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2042\/revisions\/2043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cake.appscodestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cake.appscodestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cake.appscodestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}