What Order Does Your Body Break Down Food Groups?

The breakdown of foods is vitally important to making the nutrients usable by our bodies. The process and breakdown of foods begins the second food enters our mouth.

Mouth

• Saliva begins breaking down simple sugars and other carbohydrates. Chewing, also known as mastication, helps to breakdown all the food into smaller pieces, which increases the amount of surface area of the food.

Esophagus

• After being swallowed, food travels down a long tube called the esophagus where further breakdown occurs. The esophagus uses wave like contractions to force the food through to the stomach and to further increase the surface area.

Stomach

• A very low pH acid called gastric acid breaks down food in the stomach. Alcohol, some supplements and prescription drugs are absorbed in the stomach.

Small Intestine

• The small intestine is where the majority of foods are absorbed. Carbohydrates are the first to be absorbed as they are the smallest molecules, and are broken down the most by enzymes. Most proteins are absorbed in the small intestine as well; this process, however, takes slightly longer as the protein molecule is larger and takes longer to be broken into usable parts.

Large Intestine

• The large intestine is where the majority of whatever hasn't been absorbed gets taken in by the body. Because dietary fats are the largest molecule humans consume, it takes the longest to absorb, and consequently is that last to be broken down and absorbed.