AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Mouth. The digestive process starts in your mouth when you chew. Your salivary glands make saliva, a digestive juice, which moistens food so it moves more easily through your esophagus into your stomach. Saliva also has an enzyme that begins to break down starches in your food.

Detailed explanation-2: -Summary. Food is broken down by the digestive system to give energy to every cell in the body. The digestive tract starts at the mouth and ends at the anus.

Detailed explanation-3: -Ingestion – the taking in of food Food is taken into the mouth where it is physically broken down by the teeth into smaller pieces. The presence of food in the mouth triggers a nervous reflex that causes the salivary glands to deliver a watery fluid called saliva to the mouth.

Detailed explanation-4: -A digestive enzyme in saliva called amylase (pronounced: AH-meh-lace) starts to break down some of the carbohydrates (starches and sugars) in the food even before it leaves the mouth.