Answer:
The Digestion Process. Digestion converts the food we eat into smaller particles, which will be processed into energy or used as building blocks.
Digestion involves two processes - physical and chemical. During the physical process, the food is mixed and moved throughout the gastrointestinal tract. This process is also referred to as motility and the partially digested food is propelled by the wave-like action called peristalsis. Ring-like muscular valves called sphincters prevent the back flow of partially digested food and digestive juices. There are sphincters between the esophagus and stomach (esophageal sphincter), between the stomach and small intestine (pyloric sphincter) and small intestine and colon (ileocecal sphincter).
Explanation:
-From the Mouth to the Stomach
The first step is ingestion, which is the collection of food into the digestive tract. It may seem a simple process, but ingestion involves smelling food, thinking about food, and the involuntary release of saliva, in the mouth to prepare for food entry. In the mouth, where the second step of digestion occurs, the mechanical and chemical breakdown of food begins. The chemical breakdown of food involves enzymes, which break apart the components in food.
-From the Stomach to the Small Intestine
When food enters the stomach, a highly muscular organ, powerful peristaltic contractions help mash, pulverize, and churn food into chyme. Chyme is a semiliquid mass of partially digested food that also contains gastric juices secreted by cells in the stomach. Cells in the stomach also secrete hydrochloric acid and the enzyme pepsin, that chemically breaks down protein into smaller molecules. A thick mucus coat lines the stomach to protect it from digesting itself.
-From the Small Intestine to the Large Intestine
The process of digestion is fairly efficient. Any food that is still incompletely broken down (usually less than ten percent of food consumed) and the food’s indigestible fiber content moves from the small intestine to the large intestine (colon) through a connecting valve, ileoceceal sphincter. The main task of the large intestine is to reabsorb water.
-From the Large Intestine to the Anus
After a few hours in the stomach, plus three to six hours in the small intestine, and about sixteen hours in the large intestine, the digestion process enters step four, which is the elimination of indigestible food as feces. Feces contain indigestible food and gut bacteria (almost 50 percent of content). It is stored in the rectum until it is expelled through the anus via defecation.
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