Mouth: Teeth bite off and chew food into a soft pulp that is easy to swallow. Chewing mixes the food with watery saliva, from 6 salivary glands around the mouth and face, to make it moist and slippery.

 

Esophagus:  Muscular tube that pushes food down to the stomach.

 

Stomach:  The walls of the stomach mush the food into a thick soup.The walls of the stomach also secrete a juice that dissolves the food chemically.

 

Pancreas:  Also makes a digestive juices and helps digest food further as it is sent on to the small intestine.

 

Gall Bladder: The gall bladder secretes bile that is produced in the liver. The bile helps digest the fatty foods.

 

Small intestine:  This part of the tract is narrow, but very long - about 20 feet. Here, more enzymes continue the chemical attack on the food. Finally the nutrients are small enough to pass through the lining of the small intestine, and into the blood.

 

Liver: Blood from the intestines flows to the liver, carrying nutrients, vitamins and minerals, and other products from digestion. The liver is like a food-processing factory with more than 200 different jobs. It stores some nutrients, changes them from one form to another, and releases them into the blood acccording to the activities and needs of the body.

 

Large Intestine: Any useful substances in the leftovers, such as spare water and body minerals, are absorbed through the walls of the large intestine, back into the blood. The remains are formed into brown, semi-solid faeces, ready to be removed from the body.

 

Rectum: The end of the large intestine and the next part of the tract, the rectum, store the faeces.

 

Anus: These are finally squeezed through a ring of muscle, the anus, and out of the body.