• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
Zippy Facts Logo

Zippy Facts

Interesting Random Facts

  • Animals
  • Culture
  • Firsts
  • Food
  • Geography
  • Health
  • History
  • Inventions
  • Language
  • Mythology
  • Odds
  • People
  • Religion
  • Science
  • Space
  • Universe
  • World
You are here: Home / Your Body / What Does Saliva Do?

What Does Saliva Do?

March 8, 2020 by Karen Hill

Saliva, or “spit,” helps you swallow and digest food. As soon as you start to eat, glands in your mouth begin to secrete saliva, moistening and softening food to make it easier to swallow.

Saliva also contains an enzyme called ptyalin, which digests food the same way that the digestive juices in your stomach do. This enzyme changes some of the starch in food into sugar, giving the stomach a “head start” in digesting the food.

You have three pairs of saliva glands in your mouth, and they each produce a different kind of saliva. The body always knows how much saliva to produce, and what kind. That’s why your saliva glands will produce much more saliva when you eat a dry cracker than when you eat a juicy piece of fruit!

The largest saliva glands in the mouth produce more than 25,000 quarts of saliva in an average lifetime!

Related Facts

  • Where do Germs, Bacteria, and Viruses come from and How do they make us sick?
  • Top 25 Inventions That Changed the World
  • Top 25 Inventions That Changed Our Lives Forever
  • What Is Food Irradiation and Is Food Irradiation Safe?
  • What Does Your Stomach Do?
  • Why Do Crackers and Matzos Have All Those Little Holes In Them?

Filed Under: Your Body

About Karen Hill

Karen Hill is a freelance writer, editor, and columnist. Born in New York, her work has appeared in the Examiner, Yahoo News, Buzzfeed, among others.

Previous Post: « Do Wisdom Teeth Make You Wiser?
Next Post: What Is Frostbite? »

Footer

Follow

  • Facebook
  • Flickr
  • GitHub
  • Google+
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Medium
  • Pinterest
  • StumbleUpon
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Categories

Accomplishments Animals Culture Firsts Food Geography Health History Inventions Language Mythology Odds People Religion Science Space Universe World Your Body

About

Zippy Facts empowers the world by serving educational content that is accessible to everyone.

A tribute to growing up, zippyfacts.com showcases interesting and unusual facts about the world.

Our mission is to use technology to facilitate knowledge transfer and sharing.

Copyright © 2020 Zippy Facts

  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy