The Journey of Food: How Digestion Works

Full transcript

What happens to your food after you swallow it? It starts an incredible journey through your digestive system, beginning right inside your mouth, where teeth chew food into tiny pieces and saliva starts breaking it down chemically. Once you swallow, the chewed food travels down a long muscular tube called the esophagus. Wave-like muscle contractions push the food downward all the way into your stomach, like squeezing toothpaste through a tube. The stomach is a powerful bag that churns your food and mixes it with strong acid and digestive juices, breaking everything down into a thick soupy liquid. This process can take up to four hours before the food moves on. Next, the liquid food enters the small intestine, a super long coiled tube where most of the real magic happens. Nutrients like vitamins, proteins, and sugars pass through the intestinal walls and enter your bloodstream to feed your entire body. Helping the small intestine are three important organs: the liver produces bile to break down fats, the gallbladder stores that bile, and the pancreas sends powerful enzymes that digest proteins and carbohydrates efficiently. Whatever cannot be absorbed moves into the large intestine, where water is soaked up and waste becomes solid. It then passes through the rectum and exits through the anus. Your amazing digestive system turns food into the nutrients your body needs to survive!