I’m talking about both plants and animals based foods
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It gets broken down into protiens, and then amino acids for your body to use for energy and rebuilding its own cells.
Great question! Biochemist here. Some of it is actually taken up by the genome and incorporated in to you. Most is digested in to chyme which contains the all the building blocks for life and is taken up in the small intestimes and made in to you. Organisms take up exogenous DNA and RNA ALL THE TIME. This is the basis for the mRNA and DNA based vaccines.
DNA and RNA are polymers — long chains made of simple units (called monomers); the monomers that make DNA and RNA are called nucleotides).
The liquid in your stomach (called “gastric juices” or “chyme”) break the long chains into pieces. Those pieces are absorbed in your stomach and intestines like water passing through a wet paper towel, and go into your blood. They float in the blood until they bump into cells and pass inside. The cells can use the nucleotides to build DNA and RNA (chains of nucleotides) in your cells. Some can also be converted into other materials that your cells need.
Some are peed and pooped out, either because they weren’t absorbed and just ride on through with other bits of food material, or because they are eventually further broken down by cells (particularly the liver) to form chemicals like uric acid and ammonia, which are filtered out by your kidneys, deposited into your bladder, and come out in your pee.
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