How Does Pepperoni & Cheese Pizza Dissolve in the Stomach?

While pepperoni and cheese pizza contains a great deal of fat, it also provides fat-soluble vitamins, proteins, minerals and carbohydrates. Your body dissolves the pizza through the digestive process, extracting these nutrients from the pizza.

Stomach Contractions

• Once you swallow, muscular contractions push the pizza through your esophagus into your stomach. Once the pepperoni and cheese pizza is in your stomach, your stomach muscles contract to mix the chewed up pizza with saliva and other stomach contents.

Gastric Juices

• Gastric glands within your stomach produce gastric juices, made up of pepsinogen and hydrochloric acid. Hydrochloric acid converts pepsinogen into pepsin, which dissolves the pepperoni and cheese into amino acids.

Emptying The Stomach

• Once the pizza has been mostly dissolved, the stomach muscles contract to push the pizza down into the small intestine. In the small intestine, carbohydrates from the crust and amino acids and fats from the pepperoni and cheese which have been dissolved in your stomach are absorbed.