Nutrition

The body depends on its method of digestion in order to pull out to vital nutrients and vitamins it needs to survive out of the foods that we eat. The body separates digestion into two modes: mechanical and chemical. Due to the fact that we eat such a wide variety of different types of foods, there are different approaches the body takes in order to most successfully digest each individual item. For instance, digesting a carrot is different than a greasy piece of pizza filled with fats.

When one eats a carrot, the first step in the digestion process is the mechanical digestion. This occurs within the mouth and consists of the chewing and grinding of food between the teeth in order to "help separate the different types of molecules," (George Mateljan Foundation 2009) happens in the mouth. After this process, the carrot then travels down the throat and into the lower parts of the digestion system. This is where the chemical process of digestion begins. In the chemical process of digestion enzymes "cut the bonds within the molecules, to release small nutrients in your system," (George Mateljan Foundation 2009). This chemical process happens all along the digestion track.

Yet, eating the carrot provides a different digestion response than eating a greasy piece of pizza. When one digests a carrot, a plant food source, one is consuming mainly starch-based nutrients. This means that the "body uses a number of enzymes to cut down a large, linear starch chain into the small individual units that are linked together, the glucose molecules, which can then be absorbed in the intestines," (George Mateljan Foundation 2009). The absorption takes place within the walls of the digestive track and releases necessary nutrients directly into the bloodstream. However, a greasy pizza is filled mainly with cholesterol. Cholesterol is not an essential fat, but is digested in the same manner. The process of hydrolysis strips off the fats then uses bile acids to finish digestion since fats are not water saleable.

References

George Mateljan Foundation. (2009). How does digestion work and how can I improve mine? The World's Healthiest Foods. Retrieved October 5, 2009 at http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=faq&dbid=16