Guts and Glory

What does it mean when your stomach rumbles? How do our bodies
extract nutrients and vitamins from food? Does what you eat affect
your mood? Digestion is an invisible, effortless, unconscious
process—and one that, until recently, we knew almost nothing about.
On this episode of Gastropod, we follow our food on its journey to
becoming fuel, from the filtered blood that helps slide food into
the stomach, to the velvet walls and rippling choreography of the
small intestine, to the microbial magic of the colon and out the
other end. And we do it by visiting the world’s most sophisticated
artificial gut at dinner time—a plumbing marvel named TIM that
chews, swallows, squeezes, farts, and poops just like the real
thing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit
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