What Happens to our Food?

On our last visit to see Harold we looked at what happens to food once it goes into the mouth.

l

 Saliva breaks food down food (making it mushy and easy to swallow).

The esophagus is about 25 cm long and slowly squeezes food through to the stomach.

The stomach stores the food eaten, breaks down the food to a liquid mixture and slowly empties that liquid mixture into the intenstine.  It uses gastric juices to mix all the food into tiny pieces.

The small intestine breaks down food to a thin watery mixture to  absorb all the vitamins, minerals, proteins, carbohydrates and fats into the blood.