The Digestive System

1. Mouth: The digestive process starts in your mouth when you chew.
2. Teeth: Teeth chew your food – also known as mastication – the process of cutting, tearing, and
grinding the food in the mouth and mix it with the saliva so it can be swallowed easily before it
enters your body. This process is considered as the mechanical process of digestion.
3. Tongue: The tongue functions as a digestive organ by facilitating the movement of food during
mastication and assisting swallowing.
4. Salivary gland: Salivary glands play an important role in digestion because they make saliva.
Saliva helps moisten food so we can swallow it more easily. It also has an enzyme called amylase
that makes it easier for the stomach to break down starches in food.
5. Pharynx: Chew your food more -- it also helps with your digestion. Also called the throat, the
pharynx is the portion of the digestive tract that receives the food from your mouth.
6. Epiglottis: The main function of the epiglottis is to seal off the windpipe during eating, so that
food is not accidentally inhaled.
7. Esophagus: Esophagus. Located in your throat near your trachea, the esophagus receives food
from your mouth when you swallow. The epiglottis is a small flap that folds over your windpipe
as you swallow to prevent you from choking.
8. Liver: The liver has many functions, but its main job within the digestive system is to process the
nutrients absorbed from the small intestine.
9. Stomach: The stomach is a hollow organ, or "container," that holds food while it is being mixed
with stomach enzymes. Cells in the lining of your stomach secrete a strong acid and powerful
enzymes that are responsible for the breakdown process.
10. Gallbladder: The gallbladder stores and concentrates bile from the liver. The bile is then
released into the first section of the small intestine
11. Pancreas: pancreas makes pancreatic juices called enzymes. These enzymes break down sugars,
fats, and starches.
12. Small Intestine: The small intestine breaks down food from the stomach and absorbs much of
the nutrients from the food.
13. Large Intestine: to absorb water and salts from the material that has not been digested as food,
and get rid of any waste products left over.
14. Appendix: the function of the appendix is unknown. One theory is that the appendix acts as a
storehouse for good bacteria, “rebooting” the digestive system after diarrheal illnesses. Other
experts believe the appendix is just a useless remnant from our evolutionary past.
15. Rectum: the rectum's job is to receive stool from the colon, let you know that there is stool to
be evacuated and to hold the stool until evacuation happens.
16. Anus: when the rectum is full, your body feels the urge to have a bowel movement. The internal
anal sphincter relaxes and pushes the stool from the rectum into the anal canal.