The Digestive System
You sit at your table at lunch and shove food into your mouth, enjoying a piece of
cheese pizza, savoring a bag of chips and downing a soda or two. When the food is
gone, you get up and start going about the rest of your day, quickly forgetting about
the food that you enjoyed. However, your stomach has not forgotten about the food.
In fact, it is just beginning to process everything you ate.
1
Your digestive system works hard to process the food you eat, starting before you
even begin to eat and working long after you have finished your meal. It does this
through a process called digestion, which is designed to help your body get all of the
energy and nutrients it needs from the food you eat.
2
Digestion starts when you first see or think about food. Saliva starts to form in
your mouth. As you take your first bite, this saliva starts breaking down the
chemicals in the food making it easier to chew and swallow. Your tongue plays a role
in the process too, pushing the food around and, when it is time to swallow, helping
push the food toward the back of your through so it can enter your esophagus.
3
There are muscles in your esophagus and they help push your food down the tube.
You don’t even have to think about, your muscles just know exactly what to do.
When the food reaches the bottom of your esophagus, it hits the valve for your
stomach and into your stomach the food falls.
4
5 Your
stomach is a giant pink page full of muscles, mushy food and digestive
chemicals. The pink walls are covered in mucus and acid drips from the stomach’s
ceiling. The muscles of your stomach contract over and over again, mixing the food
and chemicals and working to break everything down. When it’s broken down and
mixed enough, it is pushed through the stomach into the small intestine.
Once inside your small intestine, chemical and liquids continue to break down the
food. Small finger-like pieces called villi come out of the sides of the intestine to soak
up the nutrients. The villi carry the nutrients to your bloodstream.
6
Anything that your body cannot use is sent to the large intestine. This part of your
body acts like a large dryer, taking water from the food and using it in your body.
Once everything that can be taken from the food is gone, it’s ready to come out of
your body and you’ll see it in a stinky form next time you use the bathroom.
7