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Enzymes in Digestion Worksheet

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Enzymes in Digestion Worksheet

Keira, Finn and Tevita are planning a balanced lunch in cooking class. Use the information below to explain how digestive enzymes help the body use food. Answer in your own words where asked.

Read the cooking-class case

The group prepares toast with avocado and yoghurt. Digestion begins in the mouth: chewing breaks food into smaller pieces, and saliva contains amylase, which starts breaking starch into smaller sugars. Food then travels to the stomach. Stomach acid creates conditions in which pepsin works; pepsin breaks proteins into shorter chains. The partly digested food moves into the small intestine. The pancreas releases amylase, proteases such as trypsin, and lipase into it. The lining of the small intestine also produces digestive enzymes, including maltase. These enzymes act on starch, proteins and fats respectively, while maltase breaks maltose into glucose. Bile, made by the liver and stored in the gall bladder, is not an enzyme: it helps break fat into tiny droplets so lipase can act more effectively. Small, soluble digestion products pass through the wall of the small intestine into the blood. The body can then use them, for example for energy, growth and repair. Digestive enzymes are not used up in the reactions they speed up, so they can be reused.

Follow the food

Use the case to answer Questions 1–4.

1.Which enzyme in saliva starts digesting the starch in the toast?

Pepsin
Amylase
Lipase
Trypsin

2.Put these stages in the order food reaches them: small intestine, mouth, stomach. Write the correct sequence.

3.Pepsin acts in the stomach. What type of food molecule does it digest, and what stomach condition helps it work?

4.Complete each enzyme–food match: amylase, trypsin, and lipase act on which food molecules?

Amylase
Trypsin
Lipase

Fats
Starch
Proteins

Solve the digestion clues

Use evidence from the case to explain the processes happening in the small intestine.

5.The small intestine receives digestive enzymes from two sources. Name both sources and give one example of an enzyme from each.

6.Tevita says, “Bile is an enzyme because it helps digest fat.” Is his explanation accurate? Explain what bile does and how it differs from an enzyme.

7.Why does breaking food into smaller molecules matter? Explain what happens to the products of digestion in the small intestine.

8.A class test finds that a food sample contains starch. Which digestive enzyme should be added to test how starch is broken down, and where does this enzyme act in digestion?

9.Finn claims that digestive enzymes are used up as they break down food. Correct his claim in one or two sentences, using the information in the case.

10.Challenge: A person’s pancreas releases very little lipase. Predict one effect this could have on digestion and explain why.