🍽️
🦷
🥗
✦ HUMAN BODY ✦

DIGEST
NOW!

Nine metres of tubing turns lunch into fuel — chew, churn, absorb!

📖 Topic 03⏱️ 5 pages🧠 Quiz
👄
MOUTH
Chew & wet
→
🫃
STOMACH
Acid churn
→
🌀
SMALL GUT
Villi absorb
→
🧪
LIVER & PANCREAS
Bile & enzymes
→
💧
TODAY
You = yesterday's lunch
🍽️ THE DIGESTIVE SYSTEM
TOPIC 03 · STOMACH · INTESTINES · NUTRITION
PAGE 1 OF 5 · WHERE DIGESTION BEGINS
START
Mouth and esophagus beginning digestion: teeth chewing and saliva breaking down food
MOUTH & ESOPHAGUS
Digestion starts before food reaches your stomach. Teeth tear and grind while saliva wets everything and begins breaking down starch. When you swallow, a muscular tube called the esophagus squeezes in waves — peristalsis — pushing the bolus toward your stomach. You do not choose those waves; smooth muscle handles the commute.
⚡ DID YOU KNOW?
Adults produce about one litre of saliva per day — it protects teeth, begins starch digestion, and makes food slippery enough to swallow safely.
CHEW!
MECHANICAL
Mechanical digestion: teeth and tongue grinding food into smaller pieces
🦷 Molars crush; incisors slice.
💧 Saliva carries enzyme amylase for starch.
TUBE RIDE
Food sliding down the esophagus tube using wave-like muscle contractions
↕️ Peristalsis moves food in one direction.
🔒 A flap seals your windpipe when you swallow.
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