many carbohydrate substrates can be metabolized by conversion to an intermediate in the glycolytic pathway: galactose, glucose, fructose, mannose, lactose, maltose, sucrose, glycogen, starch, glycerol
storage polysaccharides (starch or glycogen) liberate glucose units as glucose-1-phosphate by phosphorolytic cleavage
glucose 1 phosphate is then converted to glucose-6-phosphate and catabolyzed by the glycolytic pathway