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Very rarely do we think about what goes into eating and digesting our meals. Pretty much, we just toss the food in our mouths, chew it a bit, and let it go down the gullet.

The real process behind digestion is much more complicated and begins as soon as you put the first morsel in your mouth. As soon as the first bite hits your tongue, the mouth is hard at work. The job of your teeth is to break down the food into smaller and smaller pieces until all that is left is a mushy concoction.

While your teeth are breaking the food down, you may notice you are producing more saliva. That saliva has a job as well. Inside the saliva you are producing are enzymes that are going to start breaking down the food into it's componants and begin digestion on some items such as sugars and starches.

The enzyme that does this work is called Lysozyme. It was discovered by Sir Alexander Fleming in 1922. This enzyme working on the food that is in our mouth not only begins the digestion process, but also is a protector. It will destroy bacterial organisms that are found on our food.

The saliva also has a secondary role of making the food softer and wet, so when you swallow, it will not irritate the walls of the esophagus which are extremely delicate.

So what if this process doesn't go as it was designed? While many animals in the animal kingdom can swallow their meals whole, if humans don't chew well and instead swallow large pieces of food, it can lead to a host of digestive and immune problems.

If you don't chew thouroughly and eat too fast, larger chunks of food will make their way down you esophagus, which can inflame your throat, but that is just the beginning of the problem. Next, these larger pieces of food will make your stomach and digestive track work harder to break it down. If it can't, the undigested bits of food can start to rot and decay, in your intestines. The process of fermentation of food inside your body can create bad bacteria that are then battling your body from the inside.

If the foods that you have not chewed well enough are high in carbohydrates, you could begin a yeast growth factory in your digestive tract. Too big of pieces of carbohydrate foods in your system can be a breeding ground for yeast which will begin a fermentation process.

These bacteria and yeast created in the rotting food in your system can also cause inflammation of your intestinal lining and lead to discomfort. Other symptoms this type of reaction in your body, from swallowing too large of pieces of food, are gas, bloating, and indegestion.