What happens to the food we eat?

• Our body breaks food down into tiny pieces.
• It keeps the things from food that we need.
• It gets rid of things from food that we can’t use.

We call all of this digestion.

How does it work?

Food moves through different parts of our body:

• The mouth has teeth and saliva that help mash up your food.
• The stomach has acid that kills germs and breaks food down more.
• The small intestine takes out the bits of food that the body can use - like vitamins and proteins. It sends these around the body in the bloodstream.
• The large intestine then takes water out of the food for the body to use.
• What is left is waste. You get rid of this when you go to the toilet!