What happens to food in mechanical digestion?

Mechanical digestion is the physical breakdown of food into smaller pieces. It includes processes such as chewing, churning, and segmentation. These processes increase the surface area of the food, making it easier for digestive enzymes to break down the nutrients.

Here are the stages of mechanical digestion:

1. Mastication: This is the process of chewing, which breaks down food into smaller pieces. Chewing also helps to mix food with saliva, which contains enzymes that begin to break down carbohydrates.

2. Deglutition: This is the process of swallowing. Food is moved from the mouth to the stomach through the esophagus by a series of involuntary muscle contractions.

3. Churning: This is the process of mixing food with digestive juices in the stomach. The stomach muscles contract and relax, breaking down food into smaller pieces and mixing it with gastric juices.

4. Segmentation: This is the process of mixing food with digestive juices in the small intestine. The small intestine muscles contract and relax, moving food forward and breaking it down into smaller pieces.

Mechanical digestion is an important part of the digestive process because it helps to make food more accessible to digestive enzymes. Without mechanical digestion, the body would not be able to extract all of the nutrients from food.