The Journey of Food

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Your Gut is your Gastrointestinal Tract It’s also commonly called the GI TRACT or THE DIGESTIVE TRACT.

It’s description is a long continuous tube. It is made of layers of muscle tissues.  In this tissues are cells, glands imbedded in the mucus membrane/ linings. Its work is to ingest food, absorb it, assimilate/digest and eliminate what is not  needed as waste. It continuously works hard and is always pressed to perform its service every time we eat, chew and swallow. It is known to digest solid foods approximately 23,000 pounds in the course of a lifetime.

These are the organs in our GI Tract/Digestive Tract:

  • Mouth

  • Esophagus

  • Stomach

  • Small Intestine

  • Large Intestine (colon)

  • Pancreas

  • Liver

  • Gall Bladder

  • Anus

Although the Gall Bladder, Liver and Pancreas are located outside the digestive tube/tract, play an important role in the process of digestion.

If something is not right or something is wrong with these organs mentioned —the digestive process can be impaired—resulting to adverse effects in the nutritional status and overall health.

When this happens to the GUT, more often than not, we do not suspect—one can get hospitalized for GI disorders. Statistics had shown that over 100 million Americans are sick from GI disorders.

“The Digestive System is like the roots of a tree. When the roots are dis-eased—this affects the overall health of the tree. The same happens in the body. When the body’s  nutrition process, digestion absorption, internal permeability and bacteria balance in the Gut is dis-eased--– since all these play an interdependent function with each other—this  affects the health of the whole body”. Author Unknown

What is Persitalsis? Why is it important to the GUT?

When food is ingested thru the mouth—the journey of food  and breakdown thru swallowing--absorption, assimilation and elimination happens thru the muscle contractions throughout the GI Tract tube. This process is called Peristalsis.  

Since the “tube” is a muscle tissue—it is important that Peristalsis happens efficiently. The job of a “muscle tissue “ is to contract and relax for the Peristalsis process to occur “very well.”