Question

Where do you think the food must be going after you put it in your mouth and swallow it? In the picture given here, draw the path of the food through your body.

Answer 1

We know that our digestive system starts with the mouth where tongue, saliva and teeth works in order to chew and emulsify the food particles which then passes through the digestive tract called oesophagus reaching stomach and small intestine and finally after absorption of essential things gets out of the body via large intestine.

Complete answer:

As we know very well that the process of digestion of food starts in the mouth, it has two parts: the oral or buccal cavity and the vestibule. Our tongue and saliva helps in emulsifying the food making hard food softer by the action of salivary enzymes like Ptyalin and teeth helps in chewing and breaking down the hard and large food particles. Absorption of some drugs takes place directly into the blood from the floor of the mouth.
After that the oesophagus conducts the food into the stomach and at the junction is present a Cardiac sphincter. Our stomach is J-shaped and can store food for about hours. Gastric juices helps in further breakdown of food into smaller forms of fats, carbohydrates and proteins. Here simple sugars, alcohol and water is absorbed.
Now these products move to the small intestine where most of the absorption of fats, amino acids, carbohydrates and proteins takes place. Here most of the nutrients are absorbed.
Then the remaining absorption of water, minerals and few drugs takes place at the large intestine.
The left-over of food called faeces is thrown out of the body by the large intestine through secretion of mucous.

Hence, we can say that the food reaches to stomach and small and large intestine after swallowing from the mouth.

Note: If the cardiac sphincter present at the junction of Oesophagus and stomach fails to relax then oesophagus gets loaded with food and this condition is called Achalasia cardia and if the sphincter remains relax then acidic juices reflux and damages the esophageal lining and this condition is called Pyrosis/heartburn. Thus it is important for this sphincter to open and close at the proper time.