On Monday, we carried out a rather gory science experiment, which gave us a real insight into the process of digestion!

Using a zip-lock bag as our ‘stomach’, we added 50ml of water (coloured orange) as stomach acid. We then added green food colouring to represent bile, which is released into the stomach from the gall bladder to break down fats.

Into our ‘stomach’ we put our ‘lunch’ – some bread, a banana, 2 biscuits and some sweetcorn. We broke it into small pieces, as food is chewed up and mixed with saliva before it is swallowed and moved down to the stomach.  We carefully let any air out of our bags, before sealing them and mashing up the food – just as our food is mixed in our real stomachs.

When it was ready, our partly digested food – known as ‘chyme’ – entered the small intestine (some tights!)  This was a shorter journey than in real life, as our real small intestines are about 6 metres long!  We found that we had to squeeze the food along – just like our gastrointestinal muscles move our food along in a process called peristalsis. The food then entered the large intestine before… I’ll let you guess the rest!