Sistema digestivo

Journey of the Food

Digestion is an important body process where the food we eat, gets converted into substances which can be absorbed by the body. Wondering, how does the digestive system work?Many different organs together form the digestive system, these organs work together to digest the food.

#1 Chewing of the Food
When you are chewing the food, the saliva in the mouth, helps tobreaks down the chemicals in the food to a small extent. This process makes the food mushy and easier to swallow, the movement of the tongue while chewing helps to move the food around and the teeth helpto chew the food. When the food is enough mushy, the tongue pushes small amounts of the mashed-up food (called as bolus) inside the throat. There are also certain enzymes in the body which help indigestion, some of which are even present in saliva.

#2 Traveling Through the Esophagus Pipe
The tongue pushes the bolus in the opening of the esophagus, which is a 25 centimeter long and stretchypipe, which you can see in the digestive tract diagram. However, at the back of the throat there are two openings, one is the windpipe and the other is the opening of esophagus. A small flap calledepiglottis, opens the opening of the esophagus to pass the food, and makes sure that the food doesn't go down the windpipe. But, many times if you eat too fast, you can swallow air with the food and getburps! This happens because swallowed air along with the food or liquid, which enters the stomach is pushed out through the esophagus. The food in the esophagus moves in a wavy path slowly, whichtakes around 2-3 seconds.

#3 In the Stomach
The food, after passing the esophagus pipe, enters the stomach, which is like a tilted 'J' shaped organ, as shown in the diagram of the digestive system forkids. The stomach forms an important part of the digestive system; imagine a big house which keeps mixing and mashing all the mushed up food, and helps to maintain digestive health. The stomach...