Digestive System ... (Food)
Nom, nom. Whether its Macky D’s, or a slap up three courses in a posh bistro, who doesn’t love food?
I’m sure most people know that from food, the body takes things like energy, vitamins, minerals and other things that are essential for the body to keep working. But what happens after you’ve popped in that mouthful of grub?
First of all, that big lump of food needs to be made into smaller bits, as eventually the useful parts of the food need to be moved round the body in the blood. This starts in the mouth (or to use its technical name…the mouth), where the teeth crunch, tear and chew the food. Also here, saliva (another word for spit, or “gob” - if you come from my town) begins to break down the chemicals in the food.
Once you swallow your mouthful, the food passes the Pharynx (at the back of the mouth and nose) and goes down the Oesophagus. This long, tube like muscle, pushes food to the stomach by causing a wave of muscle contraction (this process is called peristalsis). Out of interest, birds can’t do this and so they need gravity to help them eat, meaning that people can eat upside down, while birds cant (in your face birds!). Where the oesophagus meets the stomach, there is a ring of muscle (called a sphincter), which opens to allow food to enter the stomach and then closes tightly to stop it leaving again (especially important if you’re having an upside down eating competition with a bird!).
I’m sure most people know that from food, the body takes things like energy, vitamins, minerals and other things that are essential for the body to keep working. But what happens after you’ve popped in that mouthful of grub?
First of all, that big lump of food needs to be made into smaller bits, as eventually the useful parts of the food need to be moved round the body in the blood. This starts in the mouth (or to use its technical name…the mouth), where the teeth crunch, tear and chew the food. Also here, saliva (another word for spit, or “gob” - if you come from my town) begins to break down the chemicals in the food.
Once you swallow your mouthful, the food passes the Pharynx (at the back of the mouth and nose) and goes down the Oesophagus. This long, tube like muscle, pushes food to the stomach by causing a wave of muscle contraction (this process is called peristalsis). Out of interest, birds can’t do this and so they need gravity to help them eat, meaning that people can eat upside down, while birds cant (in your face birds!). Where the oesophagus meets the stomach, there is a ring of muscle (called a sphincter), which opens to allow food to enter the stomach and then closes tightly to stop it leaving again (especially important if you’re having an upside down eating competition with a bird!).
The stomach then breaks food down further, by mixing the food with chemicals and turning it into a substance called chyme. Chyme then passes through another sphincter and into the small intestine, where it is mixed with a substance called bile and then the useful parts of the chyme are passed on to the blood. Everything that is not passed on to the blood, then moves on to the large intestine, where more of the useful parts of the chyme is passed on to the blood. Chyme is moved through the intestines by peristalsis, like with the
oesophagus. The remaining chyme is then moved to the rectum and the anus and then out of the body (well done, you have done a poo, give yourself a
sticker!).
oesophagus. The remaining chyme is then moved to the rectum and the anus and then out of the body (well done, you have done a poo, give yourself a
sticker!).