How Food is Digested

Digestion involves the mixing of food, its movement through the digestive tract, and chemical breakdown of the large molecules of food into smaller molecules.

Digestion begins in the mouth, when we chew and swallow, and is completed in the small intestine. The chemical process varies somewhat for different kinds of food.

Why is Digestion Important?

When we eat such things as bread, meat, and vegetables, they are not in a form that our body can use as nourishment.

Our food and drink must be changed into smaller molecules of nutrients before they can be absorbed into the blood and carried to cells throughout our body.

Digestion is the process by which food and drink are broken down into their smallest parts so that the body can use them to build and nourish cells and to provide energy.

Source – digestive.niddk.nih.gov