Find out distance travelled by the food during complete digestion.
Answers
· The alimentary canal or the digestive tract is 9 meters from the esophagus to the anus.
· Digestion begins at the mouth; food is chewed and mixed with saliva that contains the enzyme amylase to help break down food.
· The tongue molds the food into a ball mass, known as the bolus.
· The bolus goes down the esophagus, enters the stomach. Stomach secrets acidic juices that help to digest food.
· After digestion, food in solid state becomes liquid called chyme.
· The chyme goes into the small intestine where most of the digestion takes place. It further broken down to simple state. At this stage, nutrients are absorbed by our body.
· Substances that cannot be broken down by our body pass through the large intestine or the colon.
· The last process is reabsorbing the water, ions, and salts and the remaining solid material, called feces, exits through the anus.
· Thus, the alimentary canal serves as a passageway for food to be transported, absorbed, and released.