Ingested

Ingested is the past participle of ingest, meaning something that has been swallowed or taken into the body through the mouth or another entry to the digestive system. The act is called ingestion and refers to the process by which a substance passes from the mouth into the digestive tract.

In medical and toxicological contexts, ingested substances include foods, medications, toxins, or foreign objects. The effects depend on the chemical properties, dose, and the body’s ability to absorb and metabolize the substance. Accidental ingestion, particularly by children or pets, is a common concern. Treatment depends on the substance and may involve decontamination, monitoring, and supportive care.

In information technology and data management, ingestion refers to the process of bringing data into a system for storage and analysis. Ingested data is data that has been read from a source and loaded into a database, data lake, or warehouse. Ingestion can be batch-based or streaming and may include validation, parsing, and transformation steps. The quality of ingested data affects downstream analytics and decision-making.

In ecology and biology, ingestion describes the act of consuming food or prey by an organism, with ingested matter becoming part of the digestive tract. The term is used across disciplines to distinguish what has been taken in from what is processed, absorbed, or excreted.

See also: Ingestion; Ingest (verb); Data ingestion; Toxicology.