Have you ever stopped to think what goes on inside your body? Humans put things into their mouths, and dispose of the end product elsewhere, but in between, the food we eat contributes to maintaining our life and health, and is all part of a marvelous machine.
First, food enters the mouth. To make it to your stomach, it passes down a 10-14″ long esophagus, aided by some of the 1-3 pints of saliva that we manufacture every day. Once there, it’s subjected to grinding and crushing from three layers of muscles, and is further broken down by the two pints of hydrochloric acid that is manufactured each day. It’s not done yet, either. After the stomach, it’s on to the intestines, for a total trip though a digestive system that measures approximately 29′ if stretched out.
While it’s on that journey, your body is at work, absorbing and filtering nutrients that are carried through other organs in your bloodstream. Over a million nephrons in each of your kidneys will filter out impurities from the blood and dispose of it through the bladder. That’s just one of the functions that the kidneys perform while recycling 400 gallons of blood every 24 hours.
