How food gets converted into nutrients
When food is solid we chew it. We swallow it if it is liquor. Therefrom it goes down our throats. It is interesting to soak up what happens to food in entire digestive pathway and how our food habits esteem our health, fitness and wellness.
Ingress process:
When we chew our food in ingress it gets adverse into small pieces and gets mixed with saliva. Saliva is a colorless watery sap which is always extant in our abyss. It contains enzymes which digest food. These enzymes in saliva convert insoluble starches into water - soluble substances.
Thoroughly this is the process of digestion. Enzymes convert many compound food substances into simpler substances which since can be absorbed by the body and used for its needs. These enzymes are made by different organs / glands. What after all remains after processing of the food in the digestive passage is not utile for the body & is thrown out as stools or faeces.
When we smell food, our orifice waters. Saliva starts flowing down from the three pairs of salivary glands - - one pair below & in front of each ear, further duo at the back of the lower jaw & the inquisition yoke subservient the tongue.
We normally produce about 8 to 10 cups of saliva in a time, in our aperture.
The enzyme in this saliva room down carbohydrate into simpler soluble forms of sugar.
The more we breach our food by munching, the better. Saliva can for act faster on the food. Sweeping chewing helps digestion process. ( It is vocal, every grain of food should be easily 32 times, once for each tooth ).
Food in consequence passes down our throat through food pipe. The small flexible lid in our food cylinder, called epiglottis, closes automatically when we gulp down our food. It prevents food from deal down the fluffed passage which is wind drainpipe, lying hard by.
Stomach Process:
Stomach is an important bag shaped organ. It constantly contracts and relaxes and churns the food inside. Inside lining of belly secretes multifarious enzymes.
These enzymes help to breakdown proteins in line to let on body to swig nutrients. These nutrients are so used up by body for body repair or body surge or as a fuel ( energy ).
Immense cipher of glands is up-to-date inside lining of the abdomen. One of the enzymes, called Renin, converts protein from milk, into soft curd. Supplementary enzyme, called Pepsin, good luck down the long protein handcuffs into smaller units called Peptones which are soluble in water.
Innards again makes a large amount of hydrochloric harsh. This is the same sour which we peep in the chemical laboratory. This pungent does uncounted jobs as follows:
1 ) It weakens the proteins by loosening some of their links.
) It dissolves minerals from distinct foods we eat
) It kills bacteria which enter our innards with the food we eat.
Food stays in the ingress for a few minutes but stays in the paunch for hours. great fluid of Renin, Pepsin & hydrochloric harsh takes void about two hours after eating a meal. Food digestion at this time goes on very actively.
Digestion in the abdomen is after all breaking down of proteins into simpler peptone unitswith the help of two enzymes and hydrochloric tart.
Outflow valve of abdomen which remains closed most of the life span during the week, opens up occasionally & allows very small amount of semi - digested / digested food to proceed further into small intestine. This valve opens and closes automatically. It allows nearly digested semi - liquid, pasty food to pass through to small intestine.
Small intestine process:
Small intestine is a long pipe which further processes the semi - digested food which comes from abdomen.
Top part of small intestine is called duodenum and is about 25 cms long. There are main three juices which digest food in the small paunch. Bile juice, a bitter substance comes from liver.
Second one comes from pancreas and examination one from small stomach. Juice from small intestine trickles from multifold places along the way. Small intestine is completely long about 5 to 6 times longer than your own height. It is properly folded in the paunch. Most of the digestion takes area in this small intestine.
The digestion process is reasonably complicated. Pancreatic juices insert innumerable enzymes and hormones. These help breaking down of peptones ( derived from proteins ) into individual amino acids.
Pancreatic juice besides digests both fats and carbohydrates. Carbohydrates get converted into soluble glucose by pancreatic juice. Similarly, Lactose ( today in milk ) is also converted into soluble glucose.
Fats are digested to sell simpler substances with the help of fresh benign of liquid of liver.
The liver is the assembly laboratory of the human body.
Blood flows from heart to liver. The liver controls the level of sugar in the blood & storage of such sugars in the muscles. It takes amino acids from the blood and makes them into proteins and stores it.
It releases these proteins when required by the body. It further destroys poisonous substances and stores vitamins and minerals.
All the food which is by promptly unsuccessful down into simple, chiefly water soluble substances is absorbed in the body through small intestine.
The inner lining of the small intestine has a unit of junior, finger like projections called villi. These are sucking organs which seize the digested materials and transfer them to the blood. Blood carries these nutrients through circulatory process to diversified organs of the body.
Some part of digested fats again gets carried away through heavier network called lymphatic system. This system and empties its freight in blood, presently near the neck.
Vitamins and minerals are oftentimes water soluble and are not unbecoming down further & absorbed in the blood after being detached from the food when other nutrients touch digested. Vitamin A which is fat - soluble, gets absorbed in the small intestine rather like fat itself.
Food which we eat finally reaches blood. It is then carried to all parts of the body, to supply their needs of energy and the body building and regulation of body functions.
Large intestine process:
The large intestine is situated next to small intestine and is tubular in shape. Its inside is smooth without any projections. It is placed in abdomen in the shape of English letter U upside down.
As the digested food passes along the intestine, water is absorbed from through the walls and into the blood. The food becomes less liquid and becomes hard. Breaking down of the digested food gives rise to some substances which carry bad smell. The undigested food is then thrown out of the body in the form of stools through the opening called Anus.
How the digested food is made useful?
Carbohydrates ( starches & sugars ) are broken down first in mouth and then in the small intestine into simple sugars chiefly glucose.
Glucose is absorbed by the villi of the small intestine directly into the blood stream. It travels all over your body and is used by muscles as a source of energy for their working.
A small part of glucose is converted into glycogen which is the form in which glucose is stored both in muscles ( about two thirds ) and in the liver ( about one third ).
Some glucose is always circulating in the blood and the level is steady. When the sugar level goes up it is a sign of a fault - - such as the disease diabetes.
Fats are broken by way of intermediate simpler forms eventually into glycerol & fatty acids. Part of these fatty acids directly go into the blood and then to the liver as does glycerol. These fatty acids are either used for energy or sent via blood to other parts of body. They then may be used for energy or built back into fats, which are dispatched through the blood for storage as fatty tissues.
Any excess food which we eat above our requirements is converted into and stored away mostly in the form of fat. When we get insufficient food ( e. g. during fasting ) fat deposits are first used up.
Proteins reach blood stream as amino acids which are their building blocks. At various places in the body, these amino acids are picked up by the body organs and built into variety of compounds.
Tissue proteins, enzymes, hormones and so many other chemical compounds are protein in nature. Liver itself makes and stores body proteins.
Vitamins and minerals are also stored in the liver. Whenever body needs them, these are released to the body parts and organs.
Conclusion
There are thousands of interconnected processes going on in our body, all the time. Food is digested and then absorbed in the small intestine. All the absorbed vital nutrients are then circulated via blood to different body parts / organs. And the process goes on.
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