Includes bibliographical references (unnumbered pages 333-348).

This book is an exploration of human digestion. Few of us realize what strange wet miracles of science operate inside us after every meal. In her trademark style, the author investigates the beginning, and end, of our food, addressing such questions as: why crunchy food is so appealing, why it is hard to find words for flavors and smells, why the stomach doesn't digest itself, how much we can eat before our stomachs burst, and whether constipation killed Elvis. Here we meet scientists who tackle the questions no one else thinks of, or has the courage to ask. We go on location to a pet-food taste-test lab, a fecal transplant, and into a live stomach to observe the fate of a meal.