Not all carbohydrate macromolecules can be used as a nutritional energy
source by animals, which often lack the required digestive enzymes. For
example, humans and nonruminating livestock do not have the α-galactosidase
enzyme required to cleave the α(1–>6) glycosidic bond present
in stachyose, a raffinose-series oligosaccharide contained at high levels in
beans. This can cause a problem for humans when beans are consumed
because the human digestive tract contains bacteria that express the
α-galactosidase enzyme, which allows the bacteria to metabolize stachyose
under fermentation conditions and generate methane gas that causes
bloat and flatulence. Beano is a formulation of α-galactosidase that can
be taken in pill form when eating beans to preemptively cleave α(1–>6)
glycosidic bonds in stachyose to generate sucrose and thereby circumvent
digestive symptoms associated with bacterial fermentation.
Everyday BioChem 