• the digestive tract is a series of hollow organs joined in a tube from the mouth to the anus

liver, gall bladder, pancreas

Food DOES NOT pass through these organs

1. Mouth

2. Esophagus

3. Stomach

4. Small Intestine

5. Large Intestine

6. Rectum

7. Anus

• Teeth bite off and chew food into a soft pulp that is easy to swallow
• chewing mixes food with saliva, from salivary glands around the mouth and face, to make it moist and easy to swallow
• Mouth CHEMICALLY and PHYSICALLY breaks down the food

• Muscular Tube
• Takes food from the throat and pushes it down through the neck, into the stomach

• Thick muscles in its wall
• The stomach walls contract to mash food into a water soup called CHYME
• the stomach lining produces strong digestive juices

*The stomach does NOT digest itself because it has strong protective layer of mucus lining the walls

• narrow but long (around 20 ft)

Enzymes continue the chemical reaction by breaking the food down even further

Nutrients are broken down small enough to pass throught he lining of the small intestine and into the blood (through diffusion)

• substances not absorbed in small intestine (water, minerals) are absorbed through the wall of large intestine and back into the blood
• The remains are formed into solid feces, ready to be removed from the body

small baglike part under the liver

Stores the bile