List of the Parts of the Digestive System

List of the parts of the Digestive System

Mouth (Mechanical Digestion) - The first step of the Digestive process, the mouth breaks down food by chewing and sends the food down to the next step.

Esophagus (Propulsion) – The Esophagus is responsible for transferring food from the mouth to the stomach by way of muscle movement.

Stomach (Chemical Digestion) – The stomach uses acids to break down the food into macromolecules. Once the stomach breaks down the food enough, it is transferred down to the small intestine.

Small Intestine (Propulsion, Absorption, Chemical Digestion) – The majority of the nutrient absorption happens at this stage. This is where nutrients and sugars get taken into the body as it is propelled along the small intestine.

Large Intestine (Propulsion, Absorption) – Once the food reaches the large intestine, the last useful nutrients and water molecules are absorbed and the remains are excreted from the body.

Mechanical Digestion – the physical break down of food into smaller pieces. An example of this would be when you chew your food.

Chemical Digestion – the chemical break down of food into smaller pieces. An example of this would be the stomach acids breaking down the food even further from when it left our mouth.

Propulsion – This is the act of sending food through the body. This is how the food gets from one stage of our digestive system to the next, usually by muscle movements.

Absorption – This is how the nutrients enter our body. Later in the digestion path our body extracts the useful nutrients from food and passes the rest on as waste.