Digesting The Hamburger

The process of digesting the hamburger you love is not as simple as you would think. It can take up to three days to fully digest the hamburger since it is a more fattier food.
The first step of the process is mastication, which begins in your mouth. The food is broken down into smaller pieces by the grinding of teeth and the movement of the tongue. At this point salivary amylase is secreted by the exocrine glands and breaks down the starches and simple sugars from carbohydrates. Once the hamburger is mixed with saliva and mucus, and has formed a ball called a bolus, the tongue pushes it back into the pharynx. From the pharynx, the bolus is directed through the epiglottis, which prevents chocking, and into the esophagus. The food moves through the esophagus by the process of peristalsis and enters the stomach.
After the hamburger arrives in the stomach gastric juices are released from the gastric glands, for the action of pepsin. These gastric juices have hydrochloric acid that neutralize the salivary alkaline ph. The hydrochloric acid also activates the pepsinogen, the enzyme to pepsin that breaks down the proteins in the hamburger. The acid also kills any harmful bacteria and other organisms that might be present in the burger. The burger sits in the stomach for about four hours until it gets to the point that its ready to move on and then the bolus of food …show more content…
The large intestine has a mucosal lining with mucus that is used to convert the chyme into feces. The feces is stored until you are prepared for the process of defecation. The feces is then moved to the rectum, which is a smooth muscle that is relatively thick as compared to the rest of the digestive tract. Through the process of peristalsis, the feces passes through the rectum to the anus. The anus is a canal that releases the feces through the external sphincter, to the