How can certain foods pass straight through you when your intestines already have digesting food in them from previous meals blocking the path?

Question

It takes ~36 hours from the moment you bite into your meal to when you’re pooping it out. Meaning, your digestive tract has 36 hours worth of meals it’s currently digesting at any given time.

When you eat something bad, it seems that you’re on the toilet pooping it out within the hour. How is that even possible if the pathway is blocked by 36 hours worth of meals?

In: 308

Answer 1

“That went straight through me” is just an idiom. Your body isn’t bypassing the system to get the most recent thing out, it’s just adding fluid and flushing the whole system. If your body instead wants to get the most recent thing you’ve eaten out faster, it will activate your gag reflex and you’ll vomit.