How does the body differentiate between good and bad?

Question

Extreme case it will throw out a ring but it will digest a potato. This is the question my 8 year old is asking me to answer

Answer 1

It's not that one is bad and the other is good. The issue is that your digestive tract can only absorb small molecules like sugars, amino acids, ions, etc. So, your digestive tract produces a variety of different digestive enzymes that break down large molecules in foods into smaller molecules that we can absorb. So, the proteins and starch in a potato is chemically broken down by your digestive tract and absorbed, but something like a metal ring isn't significantly digestible, and so just passes through unchanged. Likewise, the cellulose in fruits and vegetables doesn't get digested either, and provides "fiber" or "roughage" to keep us from getting constipated.

Hope this helps...

Answer 2

i think its natural, its the way our bodies/our brains are programed, like a preprogrammed computer. The ring would be a foreighn object that the body/brain does not recognise. When something is swolowed, many messages run through the body including the brain. If the brain does not recognise the object, like the ring, it sends messages to the stomach to reject it (just think what would happen if it sent along the digestive system). Also, when you eat food that has gone off, your body recognises that there are poisons in it and decides to get rid of it before it causes further damage.

The potato on the other hand, your bod recognises as being food and good for you (as is it pre programmed to recognise the good chemicals in it) and so it takes it in.

Answer 3

because potatoes are good for your body and the ring is for bad things like in the lord of the rings and stuff

Answer 4

brain gives its desigions as the following steps:

1st step= collection of information
2nd step= analising or comparing
3rd step= result


first of all our brain collect the information via our eyes,eyers, skin or other body sensors and then our brain compare the collected information with the information stored in brain { information stored means what our parents, friends told us or we learnt from books , life etc about everything } and fianally it provide the reult of good or bad..

Answer 5

Body knows for pleasure and pain, "good" and "bad" are ideas.