How long it takes to digest food

In general, food takes 24 to 72 hours to move through your digestive tract. The exact time depends on the amount and types of foods you’ve eaten.

The rate is also based on factors like your gender, metabolism, and whether you have any digestive issues that could slow down or speed up the process.

At first, food travels relatively quickly through your digestive system. Within 6 to 8 hours, the food has moved its way through your stomach, small intestine, and large intestine.

Once in your large intestine, the partially digested contents of your meal can sit for more than a day while it’s broken down even more.

The normal range for transit timeTrusted Source includes the following: gastric emptying (2 to 5 hours), small bowel transit (2 to 6 hours), colonic transit (10 to 59 hours), and whole gut transit (10 to 73 hours).

Your digestion rate is also based on what you’ve eaten. Meat and fish can take as long as 2 days to fully digest. The proteins and fats they contain are complex molecules that take longer for your body to pull apart.

By contrast, fruits and vegetables, which are high in fiber, can move through your system in less than a day. In fact, these high fiber foods help your digestive track run more efficiently in general.

The quickest to digest are processed, sugary junk foods like candy bars. Your body tears through them in a matter of hours, quickly leaving you hungry again.

What happens during digestion

Digestion is the process by which your body breaks down food and pulls out the nutrients your body needs to operate. Anything left is a waste product, which your body removes.

Your digestive system is made up of five main parts:

• mouth
• esophagus
• stomach
• small intestine
• large intestine

This is what happens when you digest food:

As you chew, glands in your mouth release saliva. This digestive liquid contains enzymes that break down the starches in your food. The result is a mushy mass called a bolus that’s easier to swallow.

When you swallow, the food moves down your esophagus — the pipe that connects your mouth to your stomach. A muscular gate called the lower esophageal sphincter opens to let the food move into your stomach.

Acids in your stomach break down the food even more. This produces a mushy mixture of gastric juices and partially digested food, called chyme. This mixture moves on to your small intestine.

In your small intestine, your pancreas and liver contribute their own digestive juices to the mix.

Pancreatic juices break down carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. Bile from your gallbladder dissolves fat. Vitamins, other nutrients, and water move through the walls of your small intestine into your bloodstream. The undigested part that remains moves on to your large intestine.

The large intestine absorbs any remaining water and leftover nutrients from the food. The rest becomes solid waste, called stool.

Your rectum stores stool until you’re ready to have a bowel movement.

Possible digestive problems

Certain conditions can disrupt digestion and leave you with some unpleasant side effects like heartburn, gas, constipation, or diarrhea. Here are a few:

• Acid reflux happens when the lower esophageal sphincter weakens. This allows acid to back up from your stomach into your esophagus. The main symptom is heartburn.
• Celiac disease involves your immune system attacking and damaging your intestines when you eat gluten.
• Constipation is fewer bowel movements than usual. When you do go, the stool is firm and hard to pass. Constipation causes symptoms like bloating and abdominal pain.
• Diverticulosis creates small pouches in your intestines. Diverticulosis itself doesn’t cause symptoms, but if stool gets stuck in the pouches, inflammation and infection can occur. This occurrence is known as diverticulitis, and symptoms include abdominal pain, loose stools, and sometimes fever.
• Inflammatory bowel disease includes Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. These conditions produce chronic inflammation in your intestines that can lead to ulcers, pain, bloody diarrhea, weight loss, malnutrition, and increase one’s risk of colon cancer.
• Irritable bowel syndrome causes uncomfortable symptoms such as gas, diarrhea, and constipation, but isn’t tied to cancer or other serious digestive diseases.
• Lactose intolerance means your body lacks the enzyme needed to break down the sugar in dairy products. When you eat dairy, you get symptoms like bloating, gas, and diarrhea.