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Four-Step Nutritional Process: Ingestion to Elimination

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State

Obtaining nutrition runs through four steps: ingestion, taking in food; digestion, breaking it into fragments; absorption, moving nutrients in; and elimination, removing waste.

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Undigested plant fiber passes through all four steps without being absorbed, since the body lacks the enzyme to break it down.

Watch for

Digestion and absorption are separate steps — a molecule can be fully digested yet fail to be absorbed.