LESSON 11: DIGESTION

The Digestive System

 Digestion
- The process of breaking down food into something that the body can use.
o Digestive System – organ that break down foods.
o Digestive Tract – path that food follow through digestive system. Includes
mouth, throat, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, and large intestine.
Your Mouth
 Saliva
- Is the clear liquid in the mouth
- Contains substance called enzymes that help breaking down food so it can be
digest.

 Teeth
- Different shapes and size
- Have different jobs, but they all help break down food.
o Front teeth tear or bite off small pieces of food.
o Side and back teeth grind and crush food into smaller pieces and these
smaller pieces mix more with saliva.

 Tongue
- Pushes food around inside the mouth.
- Tongue forms the mashed-up food into a small, round lump or ball and pushes the
small ball toward the back of your throat to swallow.

 Taste Buds
- Are special clusters of cell that react to chemicals in food
- Each bud has sensory cell in it
o Sensory cell gather information and send it to the brain, which tells you
how your food tastes.
- Four basic tastes: sweet, sour, salty, and bitter
 Throat
- Connects two tubes
1. Windpipe or Trachea
 Tube leads to the lungs and is the passageway for air.
2. Esophagus
 Tube leads to the stomach and is the passageway for food.
- Epiglottis a flap of tissue that covers the opening of trachea which keeps food
from going down the wrong passageway.
- Sometimes epiglottis may not close fast, food may get into your trachea and cause
you to cough.

 Esophagus
- A tube about 25 cm (10 in.) long and 2.5 cm (1in.) wide.
- Connects the throat to the stomach.
- It contracts, or squeeze, in wave to move food along.
o Peristalsis
 The squeezing movements of muscles.
o Sphincter
 A ring of muscles that control an opening.
 Sphincter opens to allow food into the stomach then closes to keep
food in the stomach. This helps keep food from risking back into the
esophagus when you bend over, jump, or eat too much.
- Food travels the length of the esophagus in about ten seconds.

 Stomach
- A stretchy storage bag.
- Usually about 30 cm (12 in) long, but it can change size depending on what is
eaten.
- Shaped a bit like the letter J.
- Located under ribcage.
- Move in two ways
1. Works mechanically
Stomach moves food around the peristalsis
Like a mixer that mashes and churns the food.
Little by little the stomach breaks the food into smaller and
pieces.

2. Works chemically
When you taste, smell, see, or even think about food, some glands
in your stomach start working.
 These glands make gastric juices.

 Gastric juices
 Are a mixture of enzymes, water and hydrochloric acid
 Break down food and make the food into a liquidlike
mixture called chyme.
 Can also kill harmful bacteria you may have swallowed
with your food.
 Hydrochloric Acid
 A strong acid
 Could harm he lining of the stomach
- Gland in the stomach that produce mucus which is a special coating that protects
the lining of the stomach
- Stomach usually takes 3 to 4 hours digest food. Then chymes moves into the next
part if the digestive tract.

 Small Intestine
- Where nutrients from food are absorbed.
o Nutrients
Substances the body needs to live and grow.
o Villi
A fingerlike structure inside the small intestine.
There are about five million of these villi.
Villi absorbs nutrients when chyme passes.

- The blood vessel carry the nutrients throughput the body.

- Extend over 6m (20 ft) long and 2.5 cm (1 in) wide.
- Uses peristalsis to move the chime
- Takes about 4 hours for the chime to pass through the small intestine and the
nutrients from the food to be absorbed by your body.

 Large Intestine
- 1.5 m (5 ft) long and much shorter than small intestine.
- Much wider, its diameter is about 6.5 cm (2.5 in)
- Any material the body cannot digest passes into the large intestine.
- The body absorbs any water and salts still in the chyme
- Only waste material is left and the body cannot use this material and eliminates it
- The whole process of digestion takes one to four days.
Other Digestive Organ
 Pancreas
- An organ that makes enzymes that break down food into nutrients that can be
absorbed
- Makes insulin
o Insulin
Helps the body’s cell use the sugar that is absorbed into the
bloodstream
- In some people, the pancreas does not make enough insulin
o Diabetes
Prevents the cell in the body from getting the sugar they need.
People with diabetes must their body get the right amount of sugar.
Some people with diabetes need to get insulin shots and it help the
body use sugar properly.

 Liver
- A large organ that has many jobs
- One of its main job is to produce bile
o Bile
A green liquid that helps break down fats.
Works on fats much as dish soap works on grease
Helps the body absorbs certain vitamins
- Another job of the liver is to clean blood.
o The blood vessel that carry nutrients to all parts of the body go first to the
liver
o There the liver filter poisons, wastes, and other harmful substances from the
blood.
o Alcohol and certain drugs poison the body by having too much of this
substance at the bloodstream can harm the liver and may become diseased
and not be able to work as it should.

 Gallbladder
- A small organ that stores excess bile from the liver.
- When a person eats foods with a lot of fat, the small intestine may extra bile.
- Helps by releasing some of its stored bile
Nutrition
- The food you eat is made up of many kinds of nutrients.
- Digestion breaks food down so that your body can use the nutrients.
- Protein, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, and water are nutrients your body
need.
Nutrients
 Proteins
- Are used to build and repair the body.
- All the structure in the body are made from protein
- Some structures, such as muscles, contains a lot of protein
- The enzymes that help with digestion are also proteins.
- Food such as meats, eggs, nuts, and beans, and dairy products.

 Fats
- Helps insulate the body and provide stored energy
- Body cannot function without fat but too many fats, especially the fats in some
meats, can damage the body
- Food such as meat, nuts, seeds, and fish are high in fats.

 Carbohydrates
- The mains source of energy for the body
- Not all carbohydrates are the same
- Sugar is one kind of carbohydrates
o it is found in many food
o The sweetness in fruits comes from sugar.
- Starches ate another kind of carbohydrate
o Potatoes and Pastas contain a lot of starches.
- Certain enzymes break down the starches, and body can use the sugar from them

 Vitamins and Minerals

- Most of the vitamins and minerals you need comes from the food you eat
- Body needs vitamins and minerals to grow and work properly and get sick if you
do not get enough.

 Water
- Body must also receive enough water.
- Water helps digest the food you eat
- Some nutrients need water in order to be absorbed into the blood.
 - You get water from foods, but drinking certain amount of water every day is
important

Five Food Groups

 Five basic groups of food
o Fruits
o Vegetables
o Grains
o Protein Foods
o Dairy Products
- The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has developed a simple way to help
you know how much food of each food group you need
- The five food groups are displayed in a place setting
- It tells you what food groups you should eat every day and about how much of
those foods you should eat.