1Hey dude. My name's Gilbert.
2Gilbert The Grape.
3Yeah the name was dad's idea...
4Anyway, today I'm going on an epic journey through the human body!
5So, you wanna watch?
6The trip starts as the human heads to the office lunch room,
7opens his lunchbox, and finds me in there.
8What else has he got here?
9A turkey sandwich, some yogurt...
10I see he's taken a bite of his sandwich.
11Oh! Now it's my turn!
12He's popped me into his mouth.
13Oh! it's go time!
14Gotta be honest, it's pretty wet and warm in here.
15The mouth is the gateway to the digestive system.
16That system is designed specifically to transform food into useful nutrients
17that keep you energized and help your cells grow and repair.
18So, once you grab the first bite of whatever you're eating,
19you turn on the digestion machine.
20As you chew, food is broken up into pieces to make the process easier.
21Saliva comes in handy as it mixes with food and breaks it down even more.
22That way, your stomach doesn't have to digest whole chunks of food.
23By the way, here's a fun fact:
24the amount of saliva you produce in a year could fill 2 medium-sized bathtubs!
25Almost a pool full of drool!
26Wow, it's really raining spit in here!
27Whoa, I better watch out for these teeth!
28Wouldn't wanna end up like Turkey Boy over there.
29It's hard since this guy's using his tongue to roll food around in his mouth and toward his teeth.
30I really don't feel like becoming jam today,
31so I'm gonna just bypass all this chewing!
32Down the chute we go!
33We're now heading into the throat, they also call it the pharynx.
34Uh-oh, fork in the road. Which way do I go?
35Eenie meenie miney moe, looks like this way we must go.
36Hang on, I think I took a wrong turn.
37Why is everything shaking?
38Aw, poor human is coughing like crazy,
39somebody give him a nice slap on the back.
40There we go, coming back up!
41Ooh, sorry, dude!
42Phew, that was close!
43Almost ended up in his lungs, that wouldn't be very good.
44Alright, I'm back on the road, so let's give it another try.
45I've correctly turned into the swallowing tube that goes by the sophisticated name of esophagus.
46I like to call it the "food chute" but it's a lot less spacey than I imagined!
47I'm kinda getting squooshed in here.
48Uh oh, how do I keep going down?
49Ah, I see.
50The muscles in the walls of this guy's esophagus are squeezing behind me and relaxing in front of me.
51This is a process called peristalsis, and it's what moves me through your digestive system.
52A couple of seconds later, and we've now reached the end of the tunnel.
53There's a muscle here that opens up to let food into the stomach
54and keeps it from coming back out into the esophagus.
55It's kinda like the TSA in a way.
56Hey, I'm just a tourist here, sir, please let me in.
57Yay! I've passed through the valve and into the stomach.
58It reminds me of a sac and... let me try those walls.
59Wow, that's a strong one - it's all muscle.
60I'm not surprised, actually.
61The stomach holds, mixes, and grinds the food up into a mush,
62so it has to be pretty strong.
63Quite honestly, this doesn't look too... oh my, what's that?
64Ah... that burns like crazy!
65Ooh, ooh, hot!
66I gotta get out of this stomach acid or else I'll turn into liquid or paste like Turkey Sandwich over there!
67That's okay, I've come prepared!
68I brought this handy-dandy little device that'll encase me in a protective bubble.
69Your food usually doesn't have this, but hey, I got... connections. It's classified.
70I just have to push this button...
71There, now I can keep talking to you the whole way instead of turning into grape jelly.
72Next stop - the small intestine!
73This long coiled snaky organ is made up of 3 sections.
74When I say long, I mean it!
75If you spread it out (which I don't recommend doing because you need it to be coiled... and inside of you...),
76you'd get a tube that's over 20 feet in length!
77Yep, that's as long as a giraffe is tall...
78all stuffed into your insides!
79I must say, it's pretty warm in here.
80Almost feels like a tropical resort, except I'm in an ocean of... bile!
81Oh yeah, I'm protected in my little bubble, no worries!
82Bile is crucial to digest fat and take all the waste out of your blood,
83so be thankful your liver produces it.
84Your pancreas also helps the process with some good enzymes.
85And that thing over there that looks like a pear, that's the gallbladder.
86It's located under the liver and keeps bile in it until the right moment comes.
87Man, this thing really is coiled, huh?
88I'm getting kinda dizzy from the twists and turns.
89But no going back now.
90These contracting intestinal walls keep pushing me forward.
91Looks like I'm already in the final section of the small intestine
92and on to the next leg of my journey: the large intestine!
93Also known as the colon, it's a muscular tube that's 5 to 6 feet long.
94Hold the phone.
95Do you hear that? I'm not alone.
96I'm surrounded.
97They're coming in closer.
98It's... It's... bacteria!
99Oh! there's tons of them in here!
100Uh-oh, is this person sick with some intestinal parasite or something?
101Nah, your intestines need good bacteria to help them break down food, vitamins, and nutrients so that your body can use them.
102Sup, peeps?
103Hey, what's that little dangly thing over there at the entrance?
104Ah, that must be the appendix.
105It doesn't do much besides house bacteria that might be released into the gut.
106It's also got some tissues that are useful for your immune system.
107But it's mostly a useless little thing,
108so people can still live without it.
109Hey, if your appendix gets inflamed, a doctor will cut it out of you!
110Really! Looks like this guy still has his.
111Good for you!
112Anyway, we're now in the large intestine,
113and I'm glad it's a little roomier in here.
114Had I not grabbed my fancy top-secret protective bubble,
115I'd be talking to you now as a liquidy yellowish mush of waste.
116As these muscle contractions push me through the colon,
117I'd have all the water sucked out of me.
118My final form: stool.
119Yep, poo, do-do, number 2, whatever you like to call it,
120it's formed in the large intestine.
121Still loads of bacteria all over the place.
122They're really hard at work, eh?
123Well, there can't be too little or too many,
124otherwise you'd have digestive problems like food intolerances.
125They also play a major role in your immunity,
126and that's why you have trillions of them in your gut.
127Hey! Keep up the good work, guys!
128I'm on my way through the left colon.
129When it gets too full of stool,
130it decides to dump it all into the rectum because it can't hold it all by itself.
131It usually takes about 36 hours for what's left of your food
132(not much now, just waste) to reach this point.
133But I've been speeding through this journey because I've got some other grape stuff to do.
134So let's head to the rectum already.
135Geronimo!!!
136The rectum is a straight chamber that's about 8 inches long.
137It has special sensors, like this one or that one there,
138that let you know when there's something you should get rid of.
139They send a signal to the brain when stool or gas wanna make their exit.
140That's about the time when a thought pops up in your brain, "Oh, gotta go to the bathroom!"
141If the moment is right for you (that is, you find a toilet),
142the sphincters relax, and ta-da!
143Your stool makes its exit.
144Bye bye, pizza from yesterday's breakfast!
145What? No one else here has cold pizza for breakfast?
146Alright, then let me know down in the comments,
147what your typical breakfast looks like!
148Anyway, when the moment isn't exactly right to release stool just yet,
149your sphincters contract.
150Those rectum sensors help too so that the urge to release its contents disappears for a while.
151You should be happy when your rectum and sphincters are working hard to keep stuff in when the timing isn't good.
152Like when you're driving to work, on a date, getting groceries, sleeping!
153But when you just can't resist the urge anymore,
154the external sphincter gives you a couple more minutes or however long you need until you make it to the bathroom!
155Well, not sure if the human is ready, but I'd really like to go now.
156Maybe I can hotwire these sensors to make my great escape.
157Oh yeah, this guy is at work, isn't he?
158Um, this is gonna be awkward...
159Of course, normal food doesn't leave your body in such a graceful manner.
160You wouldn't even recognize what was what!
161But as for me, Gilbert The Grape,
162I still have important things to do today, so hey, bub, let's hit the john!
163I'm outta here! Bye!