🎉 Did you know? All animals need yummy nutrients to function! But did you know not all animals eat and digest food the same way? 🍕 vs. 🍹

• Holozoic Nutrition
  • Ever swallowed a piece of sushi whole? That's sort of like holozoic nutrition! Animals that munch on whole food pieces and digest them internally practice holozoic nutrition.
• Heterotrophic
  • Animals are party crashers! They can't produce their own food, so they rely on munching on others. This style is called being heterotrophic. Remember, plants are the ones that can make their own food, because they're autotrophic.

• Ingestion: 🍔➡️👄

  • Grabbing that yummy taco and putting it into your mouth. No chewing yet!

• Digestion: 🍔➡️🍚

  • Inside the body, complex foods (like proteins and carbs) are broken down into simpler molecules. Think of it like untying shoe laces.

• Absorption: 🍚➡️💉

  • Those small, easy molecules get picked up by your body's cells and sent into the bloodstream. Imagine a sponge soaking up water!

• Assimilation: 💉➡️💪

  • Your body's way of turning food into YOU! Those molecules are used to make stuff like proteins and become part of your tissues. It's like using Lego blocks to build a tower!

• Egestion: 🗑️➡️🚽

  • Whatever your body doesn’t need or can’t digest is sent on a one-way trip out of the body! This is the polite way of saying "pooping."