The Materials Science of Eating and Food Breakdown

Abstract

Most of the process of eating is a learned skill. While an infant readily puts most things in its mouth, the ability to distinguish food from any other material has to be taught, and even then it is several years before the whole range of foods can be consumed efficiently. Yet by the time we are 5–10 years old, our mastery of the complex set of mechanical actions involving tongue, teeth, and swallowing is so complete that we do not consciously note what we are doing or how we do it.