Video narration
What happens to a bite of your meal after you swallow it? Your journey starts before that: as you chew, saliva moistens the food and begins breaking it down. Once swallowed, muscles push it through the esophagus, the tube connecting your mouth to your stomach. In the stomach, muscles squeeze and mix your bite into a softer mixture, breaking it down further before it moves on. The bite is changing, not simply passing through unchanged. But swallowing doesn't finish digestion. Food must become small nutrients your body can absorb. That happens mostly in the small intestine, a long tube where nutrients pass into your blood for your body to use. What remains moves into the large intestine, the final stretch, which absorbs much of the remaining water. Then the leftovers leave your body as waste. So, that bite becomes nutrients in your blood-and waste your body removes.