Chewing!

by Afrina Ariff

So I thought it would be a good idea to write this out while eating. As you are reading this, I am about to dive into a pack of Chicken-flavoured Mamee Monster. Haven't had this in a very long time. Probably not the best thing to have at this hour but I am willing to sacrifice my able-bodied self for science!!!

*opens pack of Mamee*

Right, let's be honest with ourselves, have we ever given thought to what happens when we stick a piece of food in our mouth? How it is able to magically travel down our throats and fill up our stomachs to satisfy our insatiable and perpetual hunger? No? Understandable. 

The ~explosion~ of flavours usually distracts us. (This Mamee however, man is it salty...)

Before food can be swallowed, obviously, we gotta chew it first. Aaaaaaaand how do we chew food?

*WITH OUR TEETH!!!* Well done kids!

Except for this guy. But don't feel bad for him tho. He doesn't seem to be bothered by his predicament.

In all seriousness, food needs to be chewed before it can be swallowed. If not you'll choke. and probably die if no one around you knows what to do about it. (psst! we suggest reading up about the Heimlich Maneuver.)

Chewing, or it's fancy scientific term, Mastication, is a process where food is broken down into small pieces with the help of the teeth and tongue. As you may already know, we've got different types of teeth to get the job done;

As you can see from the infographic above, us humans 4 types of teeth, each with its own unique function.

It makes perfect sense that the pointier teeth such as the Canines, Premolars and Incisors, are located nearest to the entrance of the mouth, because that's where the food we're about to stuff our face with comes in contact first.

Exhibit A : This woman's Incisors, Canines and Premolars are in full view, out and ready to bite into the piece of meat. She likes her meat rare by the looks of it.

It also makes perfect sense that the Molars, responsible for grinding up food after it has been bitten off, is located at the back and sides of the mouth, preparing the ground up food that has been mixed together with saliva, now called a bolus, to be swallowed.

Now the teeth don't do all the overwhelming work by themselves. They go hand in hand with specific muscles to produce specialized movements. These group of muscles are called the Muscles of Mastication. Let's go through them one by one;

1. Temporalis (tem-pow-ral-lis) Muscle

 

The temporalis muscle, located at the side of the head, is responsible to lift the jaw to bite into and CRUSH food between the Molars.

2. Masseter (ma-seh-turh) Muscle

This muscle, which is located at the jaw, also plays the same role as the Temporalis muscle which is to lift the jaw when biting into food. It also enables us to clench our teeth in a fiery fit of rage when the waiter messes up our order.

3. Medial and Lateral Pterygoid (terry-goid)

The Pterygoids can be considered as the "connector" of the first two muscles mentioned. They allow our jaw to open and close and move from side to side.

To summarize, I've created a scenario and put all these pieces of information together in an orderly sequence;

1. You smell food. You want to eat food.

2. You find food (the last piece of chicken from last night's roast - a drumstick).

oh man

3. You think, there's no time for cutlery and plates, this needs to be IN me now.

4. You open your mouth (with the help of the Medial and Lateral Pterygoids) and bite into the chicken (using your Incisors if you're biting from the front of the mouth, the Canines and the Premolars if you're biting from the side).

5. You chew. (up and down movement of the jaw provided by all the muscles of mastication; grinding of the piece of food by the Molars).

6. When you're happy with the sludge that you've produced (formation of Bolus) it's finally time to SWALLOW.

Swallowing is another process that will be explained in the next post.

Until then, this has been Afrina and now you know how Chewing works! Tata!

Delectable!

REFERENCES

1.     Tortora, Gerard J., et al, “Organization, Support and Movement, and Control Systems of the Human Body 13^th Edition”, John Wiley & Sons (Asia) Pte. Ltd., 2011.