Nutrition & Digestion
📋 What it is
Digestion breaks food into nutrients your cells can absorb and use for energy and building.
🗣️ Coach says
Food is too big for a cell to use, so digestion is a demolition-and-delivery job. Teeth and stomach break food down, the small intestine absorbs the nutrients into the blood, and cells use them for energy and repair. Nutrients are the raw materials of you.
🧠 Memory hook
Digestion = break food down → absorb nutrients → deliver to cells.
😂 Giggle
What did one cell say to its sister cell when she stepped on its foot?
"Ow, mitosis!"
😲 Whoa!
Your small intestine is about 6 metres long but folded up to fit — its inner surface, if flattened, could cover half a tennis court.
✅ Quick check: Why must food be digested before your cells can use it?
Say your answer out loud first — then reveal.
Food molecules are too large; digestion breaks them into small nutrients cells can absorb through the intestine into the blood.
Cells can only take in small molecules, so large food must be broken down first.
🧪 Try it! (2 minutes)
Chew a cracker slowly for 30 seconds without swallowing. It turns sweet — your saliva is already digesting the starch into sugar.