How Animals Feed

4.1 All Organisms Feed

1. They take in many different substances into their bodies for growth, repair and energy.
2. The process by which they do this is called Nutrition.
3. Nutrition can be defined as the taking in of organic substances and mineral ions for energy,
growth and repair.

4.2 Green Plants feed differently

1. Green plants make their own food in a process called photosynthesis.

2. They do this by combining CO2 and H20 and build them up into sugars.
3. Animals can not make their own food. Instead they eat plants or animals which eat plants.
4. But all the substances passing from one animal to another were first made by plants.

4.3
1. The food you eat every day is called your diet.
2. There are seven different types of food that are needed.
a. Carbohydrates
b. Fats
c. Proteins
d. Vitamins
e. Minerals
f. Roughage
g. Water
3. A diet that contains all of these and in the right amounts is called a balanced diet.

4.4
1. Sugars and starch are carbohydrates.
2. All carbohydrates are made of the elements C,H,O
3. C6H12O6 = GLUCOSE

4.5
1. The simplest carbs are simple sugars or monosaccharides.
2. Glucose is a simple sugar and is made of six atoms joined together in a ring with atoms pointing
in and out of the ring.
3. Simple sugars are small, sweet and soluble.

4.6
1. If two simple sugars join together, a more complex sugar called a disaccharide is made.
a. Sucrose and maltose
2. They are soluble and sweet.
4.7
1. If many simple sugars join together, a very large molecule called a polysaccharide is made. Some
of them are made of thousands of simple sugars joined together in a line.
a. Starch and cellulose
2. They are large, not sweet, insoluble.

4.8
1. Carbs are needed for releasing energy
2. 1g of carb = 17kJ. This energy is released by respiration.

4.9
1. Proteins are made of the elements C,H,O,N,S
2. Like polysaccharides proteins are made of many smaller molecules joined together.
3. The smaller molecules are called amino acids and they are 20 of them. They can join together in
any order so many proteins can be made.
4. Some are soluble (Hemoglobin) and some are insoluble (Keratin).

4.10
1. Proteins are not always used for releasing energy.
2. They are mostly used for making new cells for growth and repairing old ones.
3. Cell membrane and cytoplasm contain a lot of protein. Why?
4. Proteins are needed to make antibodies. These fight bacteria and viruses.
5. Enzymes – which are biological catalysts are also proteins.

4.11
1. Fats are made of the elements H, C, O.
2. A molecule is made of 4 molecules joined together: glycerol and attached to it 3 long molecules
called fatty acids.

4.12
1. Fats are used for storing energy because each gram contains 37kJ of energy which is twice that of
carbs.
2. When the body runs out of carbs, fats are used to release energy in the cells.
3. The adipose layer under the skin is layer that contains large bubbles of fats or oils. These can be used
for energy and insulation.

4.13
1. Vitamins are needed in really small amounts.
2. Lack of vitamins causes a deficiency disease.
3. Vitamin C: found in citrus fruits, needed fore keeping tissues in good repair, deficiency disease
Scurvy, which causes pain in muscles and joints and bleeding of the gums and other parts.
4. Vitamin D, found in bread and egg yolk, can be made by the skin when sunlight falls on it, helps
calcium and phosphate in making bones, deficiency disease, rickets, bones become soft and
deformed.
4.14
1. Minerals are needed in small amounts.
2. Lack of minerals cause deficiency diseases.
3. Iron (liver egg yolk) is needed for making haemoglobin. Deficiency disease is Anemia, which means
there are not enough RBC so tissues are short of oxygen and can not release as much energy as
needed.
4. Calcium (milk, cheese, bread) needed for making bones and teeth. Lack of calcium causes brittle
bones and teeth.

4.15 Water dissolves substances in cells

1. Inside the body of all living organisms chemical reactions are taking place all the time. These
reactions are called metabolism.
2. These reactions only take place if the chemicals which are reacting are dissolved in water.
3. If the cell dries out the se chemical reactions stop and the organism dies out.
4. Water is also in the liquid part of blood plasma. Water is needed as it dissolves substances like
glucose and transports it around the body.

4.16 Rough age keeps the alimentary canal moving

1. Rough age is food that can not be digested. It travels through the entire digestive system and then it
is ejected in the faeces.
2. Roughage helps the alimentary canal working properly.
3. The muscles in the alimentary canal move food by contracting and relaxing to squeeze it along. This
is called peristalsis.
4. The muscles are stimulated to do this when food is in the alimentary canal. Soft foods don’t
stimulate the muscles so much. But hard food like roughage does.
5. Therefore roughage helps the alimentary canal in good working order and helps to prevent
constipation.
6. Sources of roughage, Plants (cell walls contain cellulose and some times lignin), Outer husk of
cereal grains, called bran.

4.17 Diets should provide the right amount of energy.

1. Energy from food is needed to carry out work.

2. The amount of energy a person needs depends on his sex, age and job.
3. If you eat more food than necessary, them some if it will be stored as fat. If you eat too little then
you muscles won’t get enough energy and you will feel tried.

4.18 Diets should contain a variety of food.

1. If the diet you eat does not contain all the seven types of food then your body won’t be able to
function properly.
2. The staple food of India contains a lot of carbs, vitamin, protein and roughage, but not enough
protein.
4.19 Too much saturated fat increases the risk of heart disease.

1. The kinds of fat found animal foods are called saturated fats and these foods contain cholesterol.
2. Saturated fats cause heat disease because fat deposits build up inside the arteries and make them
stiffer and narrower.
3. If this happens to the coronary arteries, then the heat muscle will run out oxygen and won’t work
properly.
4. The deposits can also cause a clot which will result in a heat attack.
5. e.g.: Dairy products and red meat.
6. The kind of fat found in vegetables is unsaturated. They do not cause heart disease so one must use
more of these.
7. Vegetable oil can be used for frying and polyunsaturated spreads can be used instead of butter.
8. Fish and chicken contain less saturated fat so eat more of these than beef.

4.20 Obesity can cause health problems

1. People who take in kJ than they need end being fat. Being fat is called obesity. Obesity is dangerous
to health.
2. Obese people are more likely to die from heart disease, strokes, diabetes and many other problems.
3. You can have a good diet by eating a balanced diet and exercising often.
4. Crash diets are not a good idea to loose weight because after the diet most people gain it back
straight away.

4.21 Starvation and malnutrition are different.

1. Starvation is not having enough food to eat.

2. Malnutrition is caused by not eating a balanced diet.
3. One common form of malnutrition is Kwashiorkor. This is caused by not having enough protein in
the diet. It common on babies who have stopped drinking breast milk.
4. Children suffering Kwashiorkor are underweight but they look fat because their diet usually contains
a lot of carbohydrate.

4.22 Food additives can be helpful

1. A food additive is something that is added to food for reasons other than nutrition.
2. Food additives can cause problems: Tartazine causes behavioral problems in some children.
3. Food additives can be good: Vitamin C, ascorbic acid is vitamin C and it prevents foods from going
brown. And without them there would be many more cases of food poisoning every year.

4.23 There are problems with the world food supplies

1. There is more than enough food on the earth to feed every one.
2. Food is distributed unequally around our planet.
3. Famines destroy crops and kill many.

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2.24 Digestion makes food easier to absorb.

1. An animal’s alimentary canal is a long tube running from one end of its body to the other.
2. Before the food can be of any use to the animal, the food has to get out of the alimentary canal and
into the bloodstream. This is called absorption.
3. To be absorbed they need to get through the walls of the alimentary canal and they need to be quite
small to do this.
4. The food you eat contains large molecules. Before they can be absorbed they have to be broken
down into small molecules. This is called Digestion.

Why is digestion necessary?

The food one eats contains some large molecules like starch, Proteins and Fats. Before these foods can be
used they need to get out of the alimentary canal and into the bloodstream (absorption). For this to happen
they need to be quite small. Digestion beaks down large, insoluble molecules of food into small ones.
Therefore proteins, fats and starch can be absorbed as amino acids, glycerol and fatty acids, and glucose into
the bloodstream.

4.25 Not all foods need digesting

1. Simple sugars, water, vitamins and minerals are small molecules and can be absorbed the way they
are.
2. But complex molecules like fats, proteins and starch need to be broken down before they can be
absorbed.

Processes involved in digestion

1. Ingestion:- Food is taken into the alimentary canal

2. Digestion:- Large insoluble molecules of food are broken down in to smaller molecules.
3. Absorption:- The small molecules diffuse into the bloodstream from the alimentary canal (ileum).
4. Egestion:-The food which could not be digested or absorbed is removed from the body.

4.26 Digestion may be mechanical and chemical

1. Often the food an animal eats is in large pieces. These need to be broken up by teeth and the
churning movements of the alimentary canal. This is called mechanical digestion.
2. Once the pieces of food have been broken down to small pieces, the large molecules need to be
broken down into smaller ones. This called chemical digestion and it involves enzymes and one sort
of molecule changing into another.

4.27 Tooth Structure is related to function

1. Teeth help with the ingestion of food and mechanical digestion. They are used to bite off pieces of
food and grind them into smaller pieces.
2. This increases the surface area of the pieces and so makes it easier for the enzymes to work. Also
helps to dissolve soluble parts of the food.
3. The part of the teeth that you can see is called the crown and the part that is embedded in the gum is
called the root.
 4. The crown is covered with enamel. It is the hardest thing that is produced by animals and it is very
difficult to break or chip it. But it can easily be dissolved by acids. Bacteria feed on the sweet foods
left on the teeth and produce acids. This causes decay.
5. Under the enamel, there is a layer of dentine which is a bit like a bone. It is also hard but not as hard
as the enamel. It contains channels of living cytoplasm.
6. In the middle of the tooth is the pulp cavity. It contains nerves and blood vessels which supply food
and oxygen to the cytoplasm in the dentine.
7. The root is covered with cement which has fibres growing out of it and these attach the tooth to the
jawbone and allows it to move slightly when biting and chewing.

4.28 Mammals have different types of teeth

1. One way in which mammals differ from other kinds of animals is that they have different types of
teeth.
2. They have 4 types: Incisors, Canines, Premolars and molars

Teeth Type Looks Use

Incisors Sharp chisel shaped at the front of Biting off pieces of food.
the mouth
Canines Pointed at the either side of the Biting of food
incisors
Premolars Very large teeth at the back of the For chewing food
molars mouth

3. The teeth at the very back of your mouth is called the wisdom teeth and they only grow after all the
others.

4.29 A mammal has 2 sets of teeth in its life.

1. Mammals also differ from other animals as they have 2 different sets of teeth.
2. The first set is called the milk teeth or deciduous teeth.
3. These start to grow when a baby 5 months and has 20 of them when he is 20 months.
4. By the time the children is 7 the milk teeth fall out and are replaced by new ones. 12 new teeth also
grow.
5. The set of 32 are called the permanent teeth.

4.30 Plaque causes tooth decay

1. Tooth decay and gum disease are both caused by bacteria.

2. Some bacteria along with some substances in the saliva form a sticky film over the teeth especially
near the gums and in between the teeth called plaque.
3. It is easy to remove at first but if left is hardens and forms tar tar which cannot be removed by
brushing.

Gum disease
 1. If plaque is not removed, the bacteria in it may infect the gums and they swell and bleed
when you brush your teeth. This is painless. If the bacteria is allowed to spread they may
work down to the root, the tooth becomes loose and needs replacing.

Tooth decay
1. If sugar is left on the enamel, then the bacteria change it into acid and dissolves it into the
dentine. This is dissolved away more rapidly. Then it moves into the pulp cavity. If the decay
gets this far its painful as there are nerves in the pulp cavity. The infection spreads rapidly in
the pulp cavity and an abscess is formed at the root. The tooth needs to be pulled out.

4.31 Tooth decay can be prevented

1. Don’t eat too much sugar

2. Use fluoride toothpaste regularly : fluoride makes your teeth resistant to decay. Regular brushing
helps to remove plaque.
3. Make regular visits to the dentist. – he can stop decay and gum disease before it takes hold.

4.32 Fluoride may be added to drinking water

1. Fluoride is added to drinking water as it prevent tooth decay.

2. But too much fluorine can make teeth go black.

4.33 The Alimentary canal is a muscular tube

1. The Alimentary canal is a long tube running form an animals mouth to the anus.
2. The walls o the alimentary canal are made of muscles which contract and relax to squeeze food
through. This is called peristalsis
3. At certain times, food needs to be kept in one part of alimentary canal before it allowed to move into
another. Special muscles close the tube completely called sphincter muscles.
4. To help the food slide easily through the alimentary canal, it is lubricated with mucus which is made
in the goblet cells which occur all along the alimentary canal.
5. Different parts of the canal do different jobs.

4.34 In the mouth the food is mixed with saliva

1. Food is ingested using the lips, teeth and tongue.
2. The teeth is used for grinding the large pieces of food into smaller ones.
3. The tongue mixes the food with saliva to make it into a food bolus.
4. Saliva is made in the salivary glands. It is a mixture of mucus, water and the enzyme amylase.
5. The amylase starts to digest the starch into maltose, but it doesn’t have time to do this because the
food is not in the mouth for very long. \

4.35 The oesophagus carries food to the stomach

1. There are 2 tubes running from the back of the mouth. One is the windpipe which carries air to the
lungs.
2. The other is behind the windpipe is the oesophagus which carries food to the stomach.
 3. When you swallow a small piece of cartilage called the epiglottis cover the trachea and prevents
food from going down it.
4. When the food arrives at the stomach a sphincter muscle opens to let the food into the stomach.

4.36 The stomach stores food and digests proteins

1. The stomach has strong muscular walls which contract and relax to mix the food with the enymes
and mucus. This is called chyme.
2. The stomach has goblet cells which excrete mucus and other cells which excrete HCL and pepsin
which are situated in gastric pits of the wall.
3. Pepsin is a protease which digests proteins into polypeptides.
4. Pepsin works best at acidic conditions and the acid also helps to kill germs in the food.
5. The stomach stores food for 1 or 2 hours. Then the sphincter at the bottom of the stomach to let the
chyme into the duodenum

4.37 The small intestine is very small.

1. The small intestine is the part of the alimentary canal between the stomach and the colon.
2. It is called the small intestine because it is very narrow.
3. There are two parts to the small intestine
a. Duodenum
b. Ileum.

4.38 Pancreatic juice flows into the duodenum

1. Several enymes are secreted into the duodenum. They are made in the pancreas and is called the
pancreatic juice.
2. The pancreas is a gland under the stomach which is cream in color.
3. A tube from the pancreas called the pancreatic duct connects the pancreas with the duodenum.
4. The pancreatic fluid contains many enzymes.
5. Amylase to digest the starch into maltose.
6. Trypsin to convert the proteins into polypeptides.
7. Lipase for digesting the fats into fatty acids and glycerol.
8. Since the chyme contains HCL, NaHcO3 is added to neutralize the mixture.

4.39 Bile helps to digest fats

1. Another liquid called the bile which is yellowish-green in color flows into the duodenum.
2. It is stored in the gall balder and flows into the duodenum through the bile duct.
3. Bile doesn’t contain enzymes but it helps to digests fats as it prevents the small large drops of fat
joining together and becoming large ones making it easier for lipase to work on the fats. This is
emulsification.
4. Bile contains yellowish pigments because it contains old RBC cells with haemoglobin. They are not
needed by the body so they are excreted.
4.40 Digestion is completed in the small intestine.

1. The small intestine also makes enzymes itself. These are made in the walls.
2. The inner wall of the ileum is covered with tiny projection of 1mm called villi. It is the cells
covering the villi that make the enzymes. The enzymes don’t come out into the lumen of the ileum,
they stay attached to the cell membranes.
3. Maltase digests maltose to glucose; Sucrose breaks down fructose into glucose. Lactase digests
lactose to galactose.
4. There are also proteases and Lipase.

4.41 Digested food is absorbed in the small intestine.

1. The small molecules are now small enough to fit through the tiny gaps of the ileum and into the
bloodstream through the villi. They do this by diffusion and active transport.

4.42 The colon absorbs water

1. The Colon and rectum are called the large intestine because they wider than the small intestine.
2. Not all the food can be absorbed in the bloodstream.
3. Water and salts are reabsorbed in the colon.

4.43 The rectum temporarily store undigested food.

1. By now all the digestible food has been absorbed.

2. What is left is roughage and dead cells.
3. The mixture forms the faeces, which is passed out at intervals through the anus.
4. The anus has a circular sphincter muscle

4.44 All absorbed food goes straight the liver

1. All absorbed food goes straight to the liver through the hepatic portal vein.
2. The liver process the food.: It breaks down some of it, it changes some of it to other substances and
it stores some. The rest is left the way it is.
3. The food is dissolved in plasma and is taken to all parts of the body where it is assimilated as part of
the cells.