Overflow metabolism

Imagine you have a big bowl of your favorite snacks, maybe some chips. You start munching on them slowly and everything is great until suddenly your hand starts moving faster and you start taking bigger handfuls. Why did that happen? Well, your body realized that it needed more energy to keep up with your snacking pace, so it started using up more resources to keep up with your level of snacking. This is kind of like what happens with overflow metabolism.

Overflow metabolism happens when your body needs more energy but it can't get it from its usual sources, like oxygen or glucose. To make up for this, your body starts breaking down other substances that it can use for energy. This can create waste products like lactic acid or ethanol.

Imagine you're playing basketball and you're running around a lot. Your body needs lots of energy to keep up with all the movement, but it's not getting enough oxygen to make that energy. Suddenly, your muscles start using a different process to make energy, and one byproduct of that process is lactic acid. This can make your muscles feel tired and sore.

So, when there's too much demand for energy, overflow metabolism can kick in and create waste products that your body has to deal with. But this process can also be helpful - some bacteria and yeast use overflow metabolism to create things like alcohol or other useful chemicals.