Food and Digestion

 For the past few weeks in our Science classes we've been learning about food and digestion, but right now mainly just teeth and the mouth, where in the digestive system does it start, and what are teeth used for, and what kind of teeth do different types of animals have, Carnivores, Herbivores, Omnivores etc. For example Herbivores' teeth consists mainly of molars and premolars. The jaw of the cow is particularly flexible, so that they can chew in a particular way, a circular motion, they do this so that they can mash and grind the grass. Cows have such powerful teeth because they need to be able to break down the fibre in the grass. A Carnivore has four canines, which a Herbivore doesn't have, the canines that are in a Carnivore's mouth are there to hold and tear their prey. But Canines also have molars, they are there to chew the meat a bit, but the acid in their stomach can do the job of breaking the meat down even further. Omnivores have molars, premolars, canines, incisors. They have all these teeth because they eat both meat and plant-based food, they only have small canines, because they don't eat as much meat as Carnivores do. So we know about all the different teeth, and how they assist in digestion. For example molars and premolars are there to grind and chew down the food, the canines are to hold your food in place so that it doesn't just slip out of your mouth while you're eating, the incisors are there to bite off chunks of food, so that you don't have to eat your food whole. 

We've also learned about all the different organs and enzymes and what they do in the body. We've only looked at human digestion, and the process of the digestion through the body. There are different enzymes in the human digestive system, they are set in different parts of the body. One of enzymes are called Amylase which lives in the mouth and the stomach. The purpose of the enzyme called Amylase is to break down starch. In the mouth, Amylase is squirted out of little pumps in your mouth when you see food and are ready to eat it. When the food enters your mouth, the Amylase breaks down the starch in your food, which makes it taste sweeter once the food has turned into bolus. Amylase is also found in the stomach where it basically broken down even more. The rest of the enzymes are called Pepsin, Lipase, Protase, Moltase etc.