Today’s lunch will be two or three days’ poop. From mouth to fiofó, food stays up to 72 hours in our body, undergoing two basic transformations. The first is mechanical: teeth in the mouth and muscles in the stomach crush the pieces of food until they are super small. Just to give you an idea, the size of the micro-pieces of food that come out of the stomach are the diameter of a strand of hair. The other transformation is chemical: organs such as the stomach, liver and pancreas release substances to digest the sugars, fats and proteins that make up food. After this breakdown, the intestine manages to absorb the nutrients necessary for our metabolism, throwing everything that interests the body into the bloodstream. What is left of this digestive binge will form the stinking semi-solid substance that we stamp on china. If we examine a small piece of poop under a microscope, we will find bacteria from the intestinal flora, water and substances that the body cannot absorb, such as plant fibers. Precisely because they are not digested, fibers play an important role in the formation of feces. “They make the waste pass faster through the digestive system, losing less water in intestinal absorption. Those on a low-fiber diet are more likely to suffer from constipation, hard poop,” says gastroenterologist Luciana Camacho-Lobato, from the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp). In order not to have problems on the throne, the ideal is to consume between 25 and 35 grams of fiber per day. You can achieve this amount if you eat, for example, half a cup of high-fiber breakfast cereal, five tomatoes and six cooked carrots throughout the day.
1. Poop is born at the time of food, as digestion begins in the mouth. Here, the teeth grind everything to pieces, saliva lubricates the food to make it easier to go down, and releases an enzyme to break down the sugars in the food. And we swallow it all
2. The food bolus goes down through the pharynx, the same breathing tube. To prevent the food from going the wrong way, the brain sends an order to close the epiglottis, a valve that blocks the larynx (breathing) and frees the passage to the digestive tract (digestion). The crossing to the stomach takes five seconds.
3. In the stomach, muscles contract to further break down the food bolus. Afterwards, the food is bathed in gastric juice (a liquid with acids that dissolve food cells) and enzymes that help digest proteins.
4. After two hours in the stomach, the food reaches the small intestine. In this 6-meter tripon, the food receives other “chemical showers” of secretions from the pancreas and liver, which contain enzymes to digest fats, sugars and proteins
5. Here, the part of the food that serves the organism is already small and digested. Food particles pass through the intestinal wall and are absorbed by millions of blood vessels connected to the organ. From there, the particles fall into the circulation and carry nutrients to the body.
6. Food scraps that reach the large intestine will turn into poop. Here, they lose water: if the feces enter the organ with 1.5 liters of liquid, for example, they will come out with only 150 milliliters. The poop, which was soft, is now harder and ready to be stored by the rectum.
7. When the amount of stool reaches 30 grams, the brain causes the internal sphincter (a valve at the end of the rectum) to open and let the poop down. We don’t control the internal sphincter, but we control the external one, which is just below. So we can hold back the urge to poop until we find a toilet.
WATER
Main ingredient of feces. It corresponds to 75% of its volume
BACTERIA
They ferment food waste, producing gases that give the poop a bad smell. Each gram of poop has between 1 trillion and 10 trillion bacteria!
UNDIGERED MATERIALS
These include fiber, cellulose, salt, intestinal mucus, foods that the digestive tract cannot break down, such as grape pits, and unchewed grains, such as corn.