Ingesting

Ingesting is the act of taking substances into the body, typically through the mouth; in biology it's the intake of food and liquids and the first step of digestion. The term is also used in information technology to describe the process of loading data into a system from external sources, via batch or real-time streams.

In humans, ingestion begins with mastication, mixing with saliva that contains enzymes such as amylase; the tongue forms a bolus that is swallowed and guided to the stomach by the esophagus through peristaltic motion. The stomach secretes acid and enzymes that aid digestion, while the small intestine mainly handles nutrient absorption. Swallowing is coordinated by neural pathways and safeguards such as the epiglottis reduce the risk of aspiration.

Digestive efficiency varies by diet and species. Herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores have different dentition and gut anatomy. Disorders related to ingestion include dysphagia, choking, and accidental poisoning; food safety, contamination, and toxic ingestion are public health concerns.

In data management, ingestion refers to importing data from source systems into a data warehouse or data lake, with methods including batch ingestion and streaming ingestion, often accompanied by validation, transformation, and metadata management.