What Happens to the Food You Eat? (Grades 3-4)

¹     Do you like to eat? What is your favorite food to eat? Is it pizza? Is it an apple? Is it chocolate candy? Hopefully, your favorite food is something tasty, but good for you, too, since good food gives you energy and helps you to grow. Healthy foods include milk, bread, eggs, fruit, and vegetables.

²     Some of the food you eat makes strong bones and teeth. Some of the food you eat gives you solid muscles. Some of the food you eat keeps you warm. But before your body can use the food you eat for all these special things, it has to change the food. That's what digesting food means. Your body has to break food into millions of tiny pieces to use it.

³     Digestion begins with chewing. If you think about it, you know that the longer you chew your food with your teeth, the smaller the pieces of food become. The spit, or saliva, in your mouth helps break up food, too.

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