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The Digestive System
by Endrick Lafosse
One day at school I ate chicken. When it was in my mouth the chicken got
warmed and cooled. When I was chewing the chicken, the saliva in my mouth
helps to break down the chemicals in the chicken to small pieces. This process
made the chicken mushy and easier to swallow. The movement of the tongue
while chewing helps to move the chicken around and the teeth help to chew the
chicken. When the chicken is enough mushy, the tongue pushes small amounts
of the mushed-up food called bolus inside the throat. There are also certain
enzymes in the body which help in digestion, some of which are even present in
saliva. The tongue pushes the bolus in the opening of the esophagus, which is a
25 centimeter long and stretchy pipe. 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 called epiglottis, opens the opening of the esophagus to
pass the food, and makes sure that the chicken doesn't go down the windpipe.
The chicken in my esophagus moves in a wavy path slowly, which takes around
2-3 seconds. The food after passing the esophagus pipe enters the stomach,
which is like a tilted 'J' shaped organ.
The stomach forms an important part of the digestive system; imagine a
big house which keeps mixing and mashing all the mashed up chicken, and
helps to maintain digestive health. The stomach performs 3 major functions; it
stores the chicken, it breaks down the mashed-up chicken into a liquid mixture
and slowly passes this mixture in the small intestine. The strong muscles in the
walls of the stomach and the acidic gastric juices, help to break down the food,
these juices also kill the bacteria present in the food. Small intestine is not small
in length, but just called small intestine because it is small in width. It is actually
a long tube, and an adult's small intestine is around 22 feet long! The digestive
system provides the building blocks or important nutrients to the muscular
system. The small intestine along with 3 more organs, which are the pancreas,
liver and gallbladder further break down the food to absorb all the essential
nutrients like vitamins, minerals, carbs, proteins and fats in the food. The blood
comes to the liver, and the liver filters-out the harmful and waste. Liver is the
largest organ in the body, and it performs more than 500 functions. Large
intestine anatomy is fatter compared to the small intestine, and if spread out
would measure 5 feet. The large intestine function in digestion is to separate the
waste food into solids and liquids, of which the solid waste comes out as feces.