The Digestive System Lab

     In our digestive system lab, we measured the length of our esophagus, stomach, small intestine, and large intestine. We took measurements of each part and used colorful string to represent each stage in our digestion. In taking the lengths of our moth, esophagus, and stomach we used external parts of our body to get as accurate of measurements we could have; our small intestine however is 4 times the length of our body as you can see the white string coiled around itself in the picture below. After doing this project, I realized how much I underestimated the length of my digestive system, as I never thought about the complexity in each organ or step of the process. I knew that my small and large intestine were coiled up inside my body, making them longer than my esophagus which sits straight inside my body, but not until I had to measure 672 cm of white string did I truly notice their extreme length.

      The length of my digestive system is 734.8 cm longer than the total height of my body. While this accumulates to a large number, our digestive is able to fit inside our abdomen due to the coiling of our small and large intestine. In addition, our organs are placed both front and back from each other, allowing everything to fit in a smaller environment.
    I think it takes about 20 hours for food to pass through the entire system. In reality, it takes an average of about 50 hours for our food to entirely pass through our digestive system. When food enters our stomach, acids are produced to process and absorb the nutrients in our food and turn it into a mixture called chyme. Our intestines also absorb nutrients for our body and remove the bacteria and wastes, thus forming stool or feces that leaves the body through the anus.

     Digestion is defined as breaking down the food we eat, involving both mechanical and chemical digestion. Essentially it breaks down the food into smaller pieces for our organs to process. Absorption is defined as our body taking in the nutrients from our food and sending through our blood and towards the rest of our body. Digestion is breaking down our food while absorption is taking in the nutrients from our food, distributing towards the rest of the body.  
     I want to learn more about what kinds of food affect the travel time and health of my digestive system. In terms of junk food or other sugary foods, what how does our body respond overtime to processing those foods? In comparison I know that fiber helps to wipe out the toxins in our body and travels through our system fairly quickly.