In digestion, foods are first process or digest in the mouth. As the foods enters the mouth our teeth broken them physically into tiny particles. A mucus will then secrets from the linings of our mouth. The mucus will moisten the food and makes it easy to swallow.

Another glands located in different areas near our mouth secrets saliva which lubricates the food. It secrets, ptyalin (known as salivary amylase) which convert starch into maltose.

There are three kind of salivary glands. The first one is the parotid glands. These glands lie on each side of our face, in front of the ears, considered as the largest among the three glands.

The second gland is the sub-maxillary glands. The gland is located within the angle of the lower jaws. The third gland is the sub-lingual glands The sub-lingual glands are found to be embedded in the mucus membranes located in the floor of the mouth just under the tongue.

The tongue has also its function. The tongue participate it mouth digestion by keeping the food to be chewed by our teeth inside the mouth. It also pushes the foods to be swallowed. The tongue also function as the organ of taste. There are taste buds over the surface of the tongue.

The taste buds have nerve endings at their bases. The tongue has the ability to to fell or anticipate different kinds of taste.

Before going to the esophagus and stomach for further digestion, foods are processed in the mouth, it undergo physical digestion wherein the food are teared, biten,cutted,and smashed changing the food to a fine mixture.