Digestive System

When you start chewing food, a process called digestion begins. The digestive system carries out this process by breaking down food into nutrients that help your body grow, heal, and stay strong.

There are two main steps in digestion: mechanical and chemical breakdown.

First is mechanical digestion. It starts in the mouth through a physical process called chewing, where teeth grind the food into smaller pieces. Here, saliva begins chemical digestion by further breaking down food.

The chewed food then moves down the esophagus, a muscular tube that pushes it into the stomach.

Inside the stomach, the digestion continues, using stomach enzymes to mix with the food and break it into small nutrient molecules.

From there, the food moves into the small intestine, where absorption happens—a process that allows nutrients to be taken up by the blood.

Tiny structures called villi pull nutrients into the bloodstream, where they’re delivered throughout the body.

What’s left passes into the large intestine, where water is absorbed. The remaining waste is formed into solid matter.

Finally, that waste exits the body.