Digestion is the breakdown of large insoluble molecules into smaller soluble molecules which can pass through the wall of the gut into the blood.
The food is then pushed down the oesophagus to the stomach by PERISTALSIS.
What is peristalsis? Glad you asked that! Here Ill explain it to you.
Peristalsis is the contraction and relaxation of the circular muscles in the wall of the gut.
The food is then in the stomach, the food is churned around by more waves of peristalsis to make it into mush, and it mixes with gastric juice.
What on earth is that?
Gastric juice contains and enzyme called protease which breaks down, yup you guessed it, protein, into amino acids. It also contains hydrochloric acid which kill bacteria and makes the optimum PH for this enzyme, meaning it will work at its best at a lower PH. I think I got that.
The food is then released a little bit at a time into the duodenum, which is the first part of the small intestine.
One of the juices comes from the pancreas. It contains carbohydrase, protease and lipase.
I know the other two but what does lipase do? It breaks down lipids.
What are they? They are fats and oils.
Where does the other digestive juice come from? The other digestive juice is call bile. Which is made by the liver and stored in a bag called the gall bladder. It is NOT AN ENZYME, but it neutralises the acid that was added in the stomach. This helps the small intestine work more effectively.
The food is now a semiliquid like a smoothie! And it passes into the second part of the small intestine called the ileum.
These enzymes complete the digestion of fats to fatty acids, glycerol, (carbohydrate) to simple sugars and protein to amino acids. Oh I see, what then? The ileum is specially adapted for absorption, passing digested food into the blood. It is very long to allow time for digestion
It has a very large surface area due to the presence of villi (finger like projections) and microvilli
Each Villus has a blood vessel and a lymph vessel to carry the food away. Is that all? Not quite, all the food which cannot be digested ends up in the large intestine. It enters into the colon where most of the water is reabsorbed into the blood.
The indigestable remains form a semi solid faeces which is stored in the rectum. Eventually it is passed out the anus.