Eli5: If every living thing has DNA in its cells, and DNA contains the instructions for functions of life, why do our bodies NOT interact with the DNA that we consume from eating plants and animals?

Question

Eli5: If every living thing has DNA in its cells, and DNA contains the instructions for functions of life, why do our bodies NOT interact with the DNA that we consume from eating plants and animals?

In: 5

Answer 1

People have mentioned that DNA in what we consume is broken down and that there isn’t a vector to get that into our DNA.

But interestingly we do have DNA from viruses and bacteria. Our cells also absorbed microcoria, which has completely different DNA from our normal DNA.