When you eat, how long does it take for the stomach to digest the food?

Question

When you eat, how long does it take for the stomach to digest the food?

Answer 1

It depends on what you eat, hardy meals can take 2-3 days to get completely out our system when fruits and vegetables may take 12 hours to leave your system

Answer 2

First, it passes through the esophagus. It moves by a wave of muscle contractions that squeeze the food down at about two inches per second. When the food reaches the stomach, it falls into a churning pool of digestive juices. In the stomach, the food is broken down into easily absorbable ingredients: proteins, sugars and fats.

Then greenish brown bile produced in the liver is added to help the breakdown of these fats. By the time the food leaves your stomach and passes into the small intestine, it's unrecognizable. The walls of our intestines absorb the nutrients into our blood and that's how we get the energy we all need to live.

How long does this vital process take? It depends on what you're eating, Dr. Oz says. "A steak dinner can take you two, maybe three days to get out of your intestine. What that means is the way you digest it is basically to rot it in your intestines. On the other hand, if you eat vegetables and fruits, they're out of your system in less than 12 hours."

What about chewing gum? Is it true that it takes seven years for it to digest? "No," Dr. Oz says. However, this little urban legend can be a good way to "get kids to stop chewing gum."

Answer 3

That depends on what you eat. Whole foods like veggies and fruits with peels left on take longer which is good. The longer it takes your body to break it down means less sugar hitting your body too fast.