Gastrointestinal system physiology

Do you live to eat, or eat to live? Folks fall on both sides of this question, but who can deny the powerful role that food and water play in our everyday lives. If we were cars, food and water would be the gasoline. Eating keeps us moving, laughing, playing, and learning. The energy from food is carefully extracted through a process of ingestion, digestion, and absorption, and requires one long (very long!) tube with a couple of key organs (liver, pancreas) sprouting off of it. Go ahead and grab a bite to eat before we get started…