Eating food

L.I Say what happens to the food we

eat
 Success
• You can:
• say what happens to food in the mouth
• Say what happens in the stomach
• Say what happens in the intestine
• Explain what is meant by digestion
• Say what enzymes do
 The map of the digestive system
• The food you eat must be broken down into
smaller pieces.
• Large insoluble molecules must be broken into
• Small soluble molecules
• So they can be absorbed into the blood
• This happens in the digestive system
• It is a long muscular tube.
Foods are made of long molecules

Starchy foods contain carbohydrates, which are

made of long chains of identical small sugar
molecules.

one sugar
molecule

Carbohydrate molecule
Digesting the food

The body has to break these large food molecules up

into smaller pieces.

The small sugar molecules are very useful. The body

can use them to make…

ENERGY

This energy is used to make the body work.

Chemicals in the body called enzymes break

the big molecules into small ones
Enzymes

Enzymes are chemicals which break the larger molecules down

into smaller molecules. There are three types of enzymes that
you need to know about.
Mechanical digestion
Food is firstly broken down (mechanical breakdown) into
smaller parts by the teeth in the mouth. It is then mixed with
saliva, which contains enzymes, and swallowed.
The stomach
Food enters the stomach, which is basically a muscular bag,
filled with hydrochloric acid (HCl).
Two things happen here:
• Chemical breakdown of the food by enzymes
• Microbes are destroyed.
cross section of stomach

food enters
from the gullet

muscle tissue

digested food leaves

The small intestine

Food enters the small intestine from the stomach. It passes along the
small intestine where the soluble food is taken into the blood through
the walls.
The large intestine
The remains of the food are then passed on to large intestine
(colon).

All that is left is waste material and water. The body will want to
leave the waste material within the digestive system but the water is
valuable and so it is re-absorbed here.
The waste material is passed to the rectum where it is stored until it
leaves the body through the anus.
Mouth

(gullet)

pancreas
 How long?
• Food chewed and swallowed
• 1 hour – food churned in the stomach
• 2 hours – some of the partly digested food
passes into the intestine. Absorption starts
• 6 hours – undigested food passes into large
intestine, water is absorbed.
• 10 hours –leftovers collect in rectum
• 16 – 24 hours – faeces pass out of body.
 Now
• Copy the diagram of the digestive system.
• Answer questions 1, 2 ,3 and 4 from page 14.
 Success
• You can:
• say what happens to food in the mouth
• Say what happens in the stomach
• Say what happens in the intestine
• Explain what is meant by digestion
• Say what enzymes do