The Big Mack Diaries
AKA
A Trip through the
Digestive System
By KW
Hi! I’m Big Mack,
a mouth watering,
loaded
cheeseburger.
Big Mack
Ever wonder how
your body gets
energy and new
cells from a double
cheeseburger?
Follow me on my trip through the digestive system!
The brain, eyes & nose
Before a bite is taken, the eyes (beholding my splendid, juicy,
delectable self OR the nose (catching a whiff of my entrancing
aroma), signal the brain.
The brains signals the salivary glands to get ready for my arrival.
The mouth
The next thing I knew, two hands grasp me and are
bringing me to the mouth.
It is opening wide and ….
chomp!
Teeth
The teeth chop, grind and chew causing
a physical change. I’m changing into
many smaller, mushy pieces that are
easier to swallow.
Saliva AKA Spit
Saliva moistened me and caused a chemical change. The starches
(complex carbohydrates) in my buns turned to sugars (simple
carbohydrates).
Swallowing is the last voluntary action taken. The rest of the digestion
process will be involuntary or automatic.
The tongue
I thought tongues were just for talking and sticking out. Was I ever
wrong!
The tongue pushed me around like a drill sergeant marching all over
the mouth until I was rolled up into a bolus (food ball) and moved to the
back of the throat.
All that chewing took 30 seconds!
(Of course, if I’d been mushy to start with chewing would have only
taken 5-10 seconds and my body wouldn’t have enjoyed my taste quite
as much.)
The nose knows
These are homophones –
they sound same but
have different meanings
and spellings
The human nose is the main organ of taste
as well as smell. Our taste-buds located on
the tongue can only distinguish four
qualities – sweet, sour, bitter and salt.
The receptors in our noses detect the rest.
That’s why food doesn’t taste as good
when you have a stuffed up nose!
Swallowing
Uvula
As I slide down the throat (a 10 second ride)
I waved goodbye to the tonsils and uvula
(what a funny name).
On the way, I bumped into the epiglottis.
(another funny name) It flopped over like a
flabby door shutting, keeping me from going
down into the trachea and the lungs.
Automatic processing
Swallowing is the last voluntary action taken. The rest of the
digestion process will be involuntary or automatic.
The rest of the digestive system will break me apart more, sort,
and reprocess me until I split it up into nutritious parts:
proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, and minerals.
esophagus
Have you ever squeezed a tube of toothpaste? I felt like
toothpaste in the esophagus. It is a hollow organ. It
transported me with muscular squeezes known
as peristalsis.
The esophagus is a stretchy pipe ~10 inches (25 centimeters) long
Stomach
Whoosh, splash! Plop! I landed in a
stretchy sack shaped like the letter J.
Working like a mixer, the stomach sloshed
me around into smaller pieces while acids
rained down causing more chemical
changes. It was like a 3 hour ride on a
Stomach
My hamburger’s proteins began coming apart into amino acids. I
could only hope some cell somewhere would reassemble them to
heal a cut or into bone cells or even a muscle squeezing the next
food to plop into the stomach.
Small intestine
A valve opened and whoosh, into the small intestine. It
was like floating inside a water ride with villi (think
spongy cactus thingy's that absorb the good stuff).
The Villi
The villi absorbed me from the
small intestine and transferred
me to the blood.
My vitamins and minerals were so small, the villi sponged them up
right away. The rest of me played slip and slide in the small intestine
for about 3 hours.
Small intestine
The pancreas sent over some juices
to help digest fats and protein.
The liver sent over some bile to absorb fats into the bloodstream. Extra
bile was stored in a warehouse called the gallbladder. I never got to see
the inside of the liver. But here’s a picture with the gall bladder peeking
out.
Liver
Gallbladder
The bile from the liver OR stored in the gall bladder
dissolved the fats in my burger into smaller parts the
spongy villi could absorb.
I hope the liver does mix in too much cholesterol into
the bile or my body could get gallstones. These are
NOT part of any rock cycle.
Large intestine
The large intestine was a bit like a big snake my friend Chunky Cheeseburger
and I held at the zoo. It went up, across and down.
By now all my proteins, carbohydrates, minerals and vitamins were gone,
absorbed by the villi to help our body. (I had started thinking of this body as
mine.) The carbohydrates would give my body energy. Vitamin A was
headed to the eyes. Calcium and Vitamin D waved as they slipped off to the
bones. Water was leaving quickly. All that was left was waste ……
Rectum AKA poop chute
Waste – fiber from the lettuce, dead
bacteria, the gross stuff – was being
shoved into the rectum. Scientists call
the waste feces. I wasn’t sad to see it go.
It had been a long trip. Breaking up is
hard to do. But I had no time to waste. I
was off to fuel the brain and I was
excited. TTFN!
Waste, waste and waist
Use the dictionary entry below to decide which definitions fit the two uses of
the word “waste”
Waste was being shoved into the rectum.
But I had no time to waste.
Dictionary definitions for waste
(verb)
1. To use carelessly.
(noun)
1. The act or an instance of wasting or the condition of
being wasted: a waste of talent; gone to waste.
2. A a desert or wilderness.
3. A destroyed region, town, or building
4.. An unusable or unwanted substance or material
What does “waist” mean?
How is it related to “waste”?
Waste, waste and waist answers
Waste (4) was being shoved into the rectum.
But I had no time to waste (1).
Dictionary definitions for waste
(verb)
1. To use carelessly.
(noun)
1. The act of wasting or the condition of being
wasted: a waste of talent
2. A desert or wilderness.
3. A destroyed region, town, or building
4. An unusable or unwanted substance or material
Waist means the part of the
human body between the
bottom of the rib cage and
the hips.
How is it related to
“waste”?
The two words are
homophones.
Label me!
Answers
1 – stomach
2 – transverse colon
(part of large intestine
3 – small intestine
4 – rectum
5 – descending colon
(part of large intestine)
Internet resources for digestion
http://www.quia.com/cb/422429.html Digestive system online game – plays like Jeopardy; single player,
player vs. player or teams vs. team
http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/digest/index.htm Digestive system review from Harcourt
http://activities.macmillanmh.com/science/ca/grade5/g5_ch3_ls2_ereview.html The Digestive System
Ereview
http://www.macmillanmh.com/health/2005/student/activity/crossword/health_gr8_ch04.html Grade 8,
digestive system crossword
http://www.classzone.com/books/ml_science_share/vis_sim/hbm05_pg46_peristal/hbm05_pg46_peristal.ht
ml Peristalsis simulation
http://kitses.com/animation/digestion.html Digestion animation
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/anatomy/digestive/labeleasy/ Enchanted Learning – label the
diagram
Internet resources (all body systems)
•
http://www.quia.com/rr/465629.html Rags to Riches (Millionaire style game) on all systems
•
http://www.mhschool.com/health/2005/student/activity/game_engine/courses/gr6/ch03/ All systems
matching vocabulary game
•
http://www.kineticcity.com/mindgames/nastro/ Assemble the system, a free timed game from Kinetic
City
•
http://www.mhschool.com/health/2005/student/activity/crossword/health_gr6_ch03.html Grade 6
crossword of all systems
•
http://activities.macmillanmh.com/science/ca/grade5/g5_ch3_ls1_ereview.html What do your systems
do? Review from MacMillan
•
http://www.medtropolis.com/VBody.asp The Virtual Body – click on English then choose your system.
•
http://kidshealth.org/kid/htbw/_bfs_DSmoviesource.html How the body works video from Kid’s Health