What happens to the food you eat once you swallow it? Digestive System What happens to the food you eat once you swallow it?

Food Follows A Path Through Our Body Food enters our body through our mouth Digestion begins as soon as food is placed in our mouth Try it with a cracker…… Put a the cracker on your tongue Don’t bite it or chew it! What do you taste? What do you feel happening?

Describe what happened to your cracker Did it get soft and soggy without you chewing it? Did you notice a sweet flavor? The saliva in your mouth begins to break down food as soon as it enters your mouth. Saliva is produced in the salivary glands.

• The pink pictures show our salivary glands

Digestion Begins: Digestion begins when these enzymes in your saliva start to break away at the food you are eating. Your teeth continue to help the digestion process as they grind up the food. Your tongue also helps digestion when it pushes your food around so it can be broken down.

Then you swallow •A flap called the epiglottis closes over the trachea so food doesn’t go into your lungs and choke you!Instead food goes down the esophagus! The food you swallow goes down your esophagus, which is the tube that takes it from your mouth into your stomach.

Now it’s in your Stomach Once food is in your stomach it will stay there for 3-4 hours so it can be broken down even more! Stomach acids mix with the food and turn it from chunks that we could recognize into a thick paste called chyme. It doesn’t even look like food bits once it’s turned into chyme

The Next Step Once chyme is made it is passed into the first part of the small intestine. It is here where more juices are added to the chyme to help continue the digestive process.

The Liver and Gall Bladder and Pancreas The Liver makes bile which is a green juice that helps with digestion. The Gall Bladder stores the bile the liver makes until it is needed and shot into the duodenum (small intestine). The Pancreas also makes juices that will help break down the chyme. The Pancreas makes pancreatic juices.

The Small Intestine The small intestine can be 18-23 feet long! The small intestine is where the nutrients pass into the blood stream so that the plasma can take it to our body’s cells. Small finger-like projections called villi grab at the nutrients and pass them into our blood stream.

Next Stop: Large Intestine Once the digested material is through the small intestine it is moved into the large intestine. The large intestine gets it’s name because it is bigger around than the small intestine. The large intestine is only about 5 feet long. The Large Intestine takes whatever liquid is left, out of the material, leaving a more solid matter. This is all of the waste materialfrom the foods we eat that our body can’t use. What goes in must come out! Through the rectum and anus

The Digestive System

The Digestive Path of Food–Let’s write it out! • Mouth Esophagus Stomach Small Intestine Large Intestine Rectum/Anus Does food ever go in the liver, gallbladder, or pancreas? NO!!!!!!!

So where do the liver, gall bladder and pancreas fit in? Mouth Esophagus Stomach Gall bladder and Pancreas shoot juices into the: Duodenum Small Intestine Large Intestine Rectum/Anus