AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -bolus, food that has been chewed and mixed in the mouth with saliva. Chewing helps to reduce food particles to a size readily swallowed; saliva adds digestive enzymes, water, and mucus that help chemically to reduce food particles, hydrate them for taste, and lubricate them for easy swallowing.

Detailed explanation-2: -In digestion, a bolus (from Latin bolus, “ball") is a ball-like mixture of food and saliva that forms in the mouth during the process of chewing (which is largely an adaptation for plant-eating mammals). It has the same color as the food being eaten, and the saliva gives it an alkaline pH.

Detailed explanation-3: -Saliva contributes to mastication, bolus formation, and swallowing. Mastication, or chewing, the first step in food digestion, results in the breakdown of large food particles into small pieces.

Detailed explanation-4: -The chewing and wetting action provided by the teeth and saliva shape the food into a mass called the bolus for swallowing. The tongue aids in swallowing by moving the bolus from the mouth into the pharynx.

Detailed explanation-5: -A food bolus is a semi-solid mass of food (most often meat) not associated with a hard or sharp foreign body. If you suspect that that there may be a hard or sharp foreign body, proceed as for a ingested hard foreign body.