On food and cooking the science and lore of the kitchen ( PDFDrive ) 476

air, and run them on the energy in sunlight Animals, on the other hand, can’t extract energy and construct complex molecules from such primitive materials They must obtain them premade, and they do so by consuming other living things Plants are independent autotrophs, while animals are parasitic heterotrophs (Parasitism may not sound especially admirable, but without it there would be no need to eat and so none of the pleasures of eating and cooking!) There are various ways of being an autotroph Some archaic bacteria, which are microbes consisting of a single cell, manipulate sulfur, nitrogen, and iron compounds to produce energy The most important development for the future of eating came more than 3 billion years ago with the evolution of a bacterium that could tap the energy in sunlight and store it in carbohydrate molecules (molecules built from carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen) Chlorophyll, the green pigment we see in vegetation all around us, is a molecule that captures sunlight and initiates this process of photosynthesis, which culminates in the creation of the simple sugar glucose 6CO2 + 6H2O + light energy C6H12O6 + 6O2 carbon dioxide + water + light energy glucose + oxygen The bacteria that managed to “invent” chlorophyll gave rise to algae and all green land plants — and indirectly to land animals as well Before photosynthesis, the earth’s atmosphere contained little oxygen, and the sun’s killing ultraviolet rays penetrated all the way to the ground and several feet into the oceans Living organisms could therefore survive only in deeper waters When photosynthetic bacteria and early algae ... photosynthesis, the earth’s atmosphere contained little oxygen, and the sun’s killing ultraviolet rays penetrated all the way to the ground and several feet into the oceans Living organisms could therefore.. .the green pigment we see in vegetation all around us, is a molecule that captures sunlight and initiates this process of photosynthesis, which culminates in the creation of the simple... C6H12O6 + 6O2 carbon dioxide + water + light energy glucose + oxygen The bacteria that managed to “invent” chlorophyll gave rise to algae and all green land plants — and indirectly to land animals