How is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich digested?

Answer 1

Eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is much more complicated than it may seem. From the time the sandwich enters your body to the time it leaves, your digestive system works hard to break down the food particles into smaller molecules that are able to be absorbed by your cells.
The first step in digesting a peanut butter and jelly sandwich starts when you put it in your mouth. This is called ingestion. Your teeth begin mechanical digestion by grinding up the sandwich into very small pieces. Next, the enzymes in your saliva start chemical digestion by breaking down the carbohydrates located in the bread and some in the peanut butter and jelly. Then, your food is swallowed and pushed by your tongue to the back of the mouth where it enters your esophagus. Your esophagus will carry the mouthfuls of the sandwich down to your stomach. When this happens, the pathways up your nose and down to your lungs are closed off. Your epiglottis, which is a small flap of tissue in your throat is pushed down by the food to close off the trachea so the food does not enter your airway. The next step of digestion is in your stomach. When the peanut butter and jelly sandwich arrives at the stomach, mechanical digestion is continued when muscular movement of the stomach churns the sandwich. As muscles in the stomach wall contract and relax, the sandwich is mixed with gastric juice containing hydrochloric acid, pepsinogen, and water. The hydrochloric acid kills any bacteria in the sandwich. The chemical digestion is continued in the stomach when pepsin enzymes break down the protein from the peanut butter and some protein from the bread into smaller, amino acid molecules.
After your stomach breaks down the protein in the bread and peanut butter, muscular contractions of your stomach walls push the mushy sandwich into the small intestine. Most of the chemical digestion occurs here. Several different types of enzymes are released. The liver and pancreas help the small intestine produce the enzymes needed to break down the food molecules. Your liver helps break down the fat located in the peanut butter and the small amount of fat in the bread. Your liver produces bile which digests fat. The bile is stored in your gallbladder until it is needed. Bile breaks down the fat into smaller droplets during the process of emulsification. Your pancreas produces several enzymes including amylase, lipase, and protease. Now, the sandwich is very different. The starch that was in the bread and the carbohydrates in the jelly have been changed into simple sugar molecules. The protein molecules from the peanut butter were turned in amino acids, and the fat from the peanut butter and bread changed into glycerol and fatty acid molecules. The molecules are now small enough to be absorbed by diffusion through villi in your small intestine into the blood vessels. The food molecules can be carried to all the cells once they are in the blood to carry out their specific job.
The last step of digestion occurs in your large intestine. Almost all of the useful nutrients from the sandwich were absorbed in the small intestine. All of the remaining material from the peanut butter and jelly sandwich are passed on to your large intestine. Once there, water from the remaining material is reabsorbed into your body. Then, the muscles of your rectum force feces out through your anus, which is your last body part involved in the digestion. This process in your large intestine was called egestion.
In about the twenty-four hours it took for your body to digest the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, several of your organs and other body parts worked together. They broke down the sandwich so your body can have the nutrients it needs for survival.

Answer 2

if it didn't, youde be screwed.