DIGESTION

Mechanical and Chemical Digestion

• Action of Chewing = Mechanical digestion starts when we chew our food, making it small enough to swallow
• Action of Swallowing = Muscles in the wall of the stomach churn our food around, breaking it into small pieces. This pulverised food provides our digestive enzymes with much easier access to the nutrients
• Action of Digestive Enzymes in Stomach and Small Intestine = Big chemical nutrients that are too big to be dismantled into smaller molecules. Each action to break down bonds between chemicals is carried out by a particular enzyme

Enzymes

• Salivary enzymes (breaks down starch into carbohydrates into maltose)
• Amylase (breaks down starch into carbohydrates into maltose)
• Maltase (breaks down maltose in carbohydrates into glucose)
• Sucrase (breaks down sucrose in carbohydrates into fructose and glucose)
• Peptidases (breaks down polypeptides into peptides)
• Peptidases (breaks down peptides into amino acids)
• Lipases (breaks down fats into fatty acids and glycerol)
• …