You are first placed in Fred's mouth by way of his spoon. As the rice krispie you were sitting on gets a little soggy
from his saliva, you decide to hop off onto his soft tongue amongst the field of tastebuds.
The saliva, produced by the salivary glands, is 99.5% water and 0.5% solutes. Fred's slightly acidic saliva is beginning the
chemical breakdown of his bowl of rice krispies.
You look around for a minute, noticing you're encased on three sides
by a row of white structures. "Those must be his teeth," you think. His teeth, as accessory organs
in the mouth, are used for chewing the large pieces of food he consumes. (To see the tooth up close and personal,
click on the word, "tooth," above.) The digestion that occurs in the mouth is mainly mechanical, not chemical.
The tongue manipulates the food while the teeth grind it in order to form the bolus. A bolus is a small, flexible, round mass that is swallowed.
The little chemical digestion that occurs is with the enzyme, salivary amylase, which begins the breakdown of starch.
Before the tongue can place you on a tooth to be chewed, you grab the uvula, the muscular conical process hanging from the soft palate, and swing into the esophagus.
