By Aida Rogonich and Takara Reed
[Didas & TK]

• Mouth
• Pharynx
• Esophagus
• Stomach
• Small & Large Intestines

• Food is taken in
• Grinded by teeth
• Mixed with saliva
– Comes from 3 large glands
• Parotid
• Submaxillary
• Sublingual

• Food passes through the pharynx
• Like a muscular membrane behind the nose and mouth which helps process food
• Muscle contractions occur
• Food is pushed down into/through the esophagus

• After food passes through the esophagus by mucus and muscle contractions it enters the stomach
– cardiac orfice
• Strong gastric juices mix with the mucus and muscle contractions help fully digest and dissolve food
– 2-4 hours

• From stomach the food is further digested here and then goes through to the duodenum
• Then fluids flow through the pancreatic duct
– Urination
• And solids flow through the bile duct
– Wastes

• 30 feet long in humans
• Imagine that you put one end of a hose in your mouth and kept threading it through until it came out of your butt. That's more or less what the alimentary canal is

• Humans/ mammals don’t contain the symbiotic anaerobia bacteria needed to produce enzymes to breakdown the cellulose
• Cellulose binds so strongly to each other. This makes cellulolysis relatively difficult compared to the breakdown of other polysaccharides
• Cellulose main use is as dietary fiber or “roughage”

• We eat some plants and the cellulose we take in is used to clear up our intestine; push out wastes
• It contains no essential proteins or such necessary, like other sugars
• It’s bonds cannot be broken down by the fluids and muscle contractions part of the canal