Sections: Prologue | Before Lewis & Clark | Lewis & Clark | After Lewis & Clark When Thomas Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark into the West, he patterned their mission on the methods of Enlightenment science: to observe, collect, document, and classify.
Partially digested food, or chyme, from the stomach is mixed with bile from the liver and pancreatic juice from the pancreas to complete its digestion in the duodenum. The jejunum is the middle section of the small intestine that serves as the primary site of nutrient absorption. It measures around 3 feet in length. The ileum is the final section of the small intestine that empties into the large intestine via the ileocecal sphincter.
The small intestine is the section of your digestive tract where the majority of food digestion and nutrient absorption takes place. It's divided into three sections. The duodenum is the first part of the small intestine immediately beyond the stomach. The duodenum is the shortest of the three divisions of your small intestine, but its small size does not mean that it's not important. In fact, it is the duodenum that receives many of the digestive juices needed to break down foods into nutrients that are small enough to be absorbed by your body.