Events in Human Nutrition (Leaving Cert Biology): Revision Notes
📚 Revision Notes
Events in Human Nutrition
- Ingestion: taking of food into the mouth.
- Digestion: the physical and chemical breakdown of food. This is necessary to allow small molecules of food to be absorbed through the walls of the intestines.
- Absorption: small molecules pass from the digestive system into the blood.
- Assimilation: the way the body uses the absorbed food molecules (e.g. for energy)
- Egestion: the removing of unabsorbed food from the digestive system as faeces.
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Digestion is the physical and chemical breakdown of food.
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Egestion is the removing of unabsorbed food from the digestive system as faeces.
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Note: Egestion is NOT the same as excretion. Excretion is the removal of metabolic waste from the body e.g. carbon dioxide is excreted through the lungs.
