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Chemistry 13 Online
OpenStudy (lgbasallote):

Organisms use oxygen to breakdown organic molecules during digestion. Why is this wrong?

OpenStudy (anonymous):

Because they mostly don't. Most digestion is denaturation of polymers, which is largely a physical process, plus hydrolysis of various kinds of amide and ester bonds joining monomers into polymers. Typically would be the hydrolysis of peptide bonds holding the amino acids of a protein together: |dw:1346471489678:dw|

OpenStudy (anonymous):

No oxidation going on there!

OpenStudy (lgbasallote):

so what should digestion be? this was a modified true or false question...

OpenStudy (lgbasallote):

respiration?

OpenStudy (anonymous):

What you may be thinking of is respiration, theproduction of energy from organic molecules, which most definitely does use oxygen. But that's not the same as digestion.

OpenStudy (anonymous):

Yes, exactly. Respiration is the oxidation of small organic molecules to produce energy.

OpenStudy (lgbasallote):

wow thanks

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