3rd & last post b4 final reflection (Part 2)

the first stop of the gut is the mouth,in which the teeth crush and cut food and the saliva from the salivary glands (which contain the enzyme amylase to break starch down)chemically digests the food too,and the tongue helps with mixing the food with the saliva,and rolling the food into a ball to be swallowed.In the gullet,the muscles in the walls push the food down to the stomach by a process called peristalsis.In the stomach,gastric juices made of dilute hydrochloric acid and proteases(which digests proteins into amino acids)digest the food. The acid is so as to provide the acidic conditions for the proteases to work,kills bacteria ingested,and also digests the food further. A layer of mucus protects the stomach from the gastric juices. The resulting semi-liquid mixture,a.k.a chyme is then moved bu peristalsis to the small intestine,and digested with the mix of liquids from the liver,gall bladder,pancreas and small intestine completes the digestion process,and the nutrients from the food is absorbed into the blood stream via the wall of the small intestine,filled with villi. The rest of the undigested food goes to the large intestine for absorption of excess water,mineral salts and certain vitamins produced by bacteria living in the large intestine. The rest of the food is then stored in the rectum. The muscles in the rectum stay contracted,but when they relax the faeces are pushed out of the body through the anus.

3rd & last post b4 final reflection (Part 1)

Ok I have completely finished the meal log,adding details such as nutritious value and the amount of fat and sugar etc. Also,here is some more info bout digestion. The human digestive system is formed by a tube,called the alimentary canal a.k.a the gut, starting from the mouth,ending at the anus,together with the saliva glands,liver,pancreas and gall bladder. Although the liver,pancreas,and gall bladder are not part of the gut,they secrete liquids such as bile and pancreatic juice which,together with the intestinal juices,mix with the chyme,a semi-digested liquid form of the food we eat,to digest it. These juices contain enzymes mentioned in my first post that digest the nutrients found in our food so that they can be absorbed into the blood stream. For the transfer of foods from each part of the gut to the other,(to be continued in part 2)

My 2nd reflection

Ok the meal log is almost done.My discovery is that I am kinda abnormal cos I eat less in the morning and most at night when it should be the other way around. For example:

-typical morning breakfast:small sandwich

-typical evening dinner:plate of rice with chicken with gravy with some vegetables(all in large quantities)

So far I havent found out anything much about my learning targets so nothing to write,but hopefully I can find more info bout them later.

Question

Erm do we post reflections for every single week for the whole holiday like in the paper or post only 3 reflection + final reflection?

1st reflection (Week 2 9/11/09-15/11/09

Well I have started on the first day of the meal log as one of the approaches to the project,and also,while researching on the project,I have some bits of info on my learning targets,like

:-the nutrients in food we eat are mostly made of large and complex molecules,such as fat,protein and starch,and they are too big to diffuse in to our blood so besides the chewing of food to break it down, there are digestive enzymes that break down these nutrients such as e.g amylase(to break down starch),protease(to break down proteins,lipase(to break down fats). I'll talk about the other learning targets later.

Learning targets

I hope to learn what is the importance of a nutritional and healthy diet,how is food from one organ of the digestive system transported to the next organ of the system,and how the nutrients we need are digested (as they are often very complex at first when we eat them).