Your digestive system is a complex combination of organs that stretches from the mouth to the rectum. People think of the stomach as a bag sometimes full, but often empty. If so it is a very special bag because it has walls of elastic muscle.

Your stomach’s walls are made from the muscles. It squirts and squeezes the contents by contractions of the three muscle layers in its walls. This continues the breakdown of the food that started in the mouth. Finally the stomach also makes a vioris called gastric juice. Gastric juices come from the stomach’s lining. These juices are added to the food to cause chemical breakdown.

The digestive system has two glands the liver and the pancreas. They are located near the small intestine. Glands make watery fluid called mucus. This fluid protects the small intestine from the acid gastric juice that enters the large intestine to digest the food. Digested food dissolves into fluid and is absorbed directly into your blood.

Did you know that you had a small intestine? Your small intestine is the longest part of the digestive tract. It is almost 19 ft. It is also the narrowest part of the digestive tract. It is only 1.5 inches in diameter. It has three sections the stomach, duodenum and the funemion. First the stomach receives the food. Then the duodenum gets the food from the stomach and gives it to the funemion. The funemion absorbs some foods through tiny blood vessels in the lining.