If you're too busy to remember to eat, your stomach will remind you it's time to refuel by growling. We'll look at what happens in your gastrointestinal tract, or GI tract, when you're hungry and when you're full.
如果你太忙了而忘記了吃飯,你的胃會咕咕叫著提醒你去吃飯。讓我們來看看當你饑腸轆轆或者飽餐一頓時,在你的消化道里發生了什么?
Your GI tract is an involuntary muscle which is constantly contracting and expanding. After you've eaten, your gastrointestinal muscle contracts and relaxes in order to move food from your stomach into the intestines. When the GI tract has finished digesting a meal, it continues to process the liquids and gasses remaining in the intestines. This process often causes your stomach to rumble when you're hungry.
你的消化道是一組非隨意肌,它會不停的收縮擴張。吃飯后,你的胃腸肌會收縮與放松,這樣就能將食物從胃部移入腸道。當消化道消化完食物后,會繼續處理殘留在腸道的液體和氣體。這個過程經常使你在饑餓時胃部咕咕作響。

Stomach growling is caused by intestinal contractions squeezing and popping intestinal gasses. Actually, stomach rumbles are simply flatulence that stays inside the body. The same contractions that cause your stomach to growl also clean out the GI tract. To see how this cleaning movement works, picture a long hose made of a pliable material. If there were an object, say an egg, at the end of the hose, you could push it from that end to the other by squeezing all along the length of the hose. This is how the GI tract keeps itself clean.
腸道擠壓在它里面的氣體使得胃里產生咕咕的低鳴聲。實際上,肚子咕咕叫就是體內的腸胃氣脹。這種收縮雖然會讓肚子咕咕叫,但也會幫助清理消化道。想要了解這個清理運動是如何進行的,就試著幻想一條柔韌型材料做成的長軟管。如果軟管的末端有一個物體,比如說一個雞蛋,你可以通過不斷擠壓軟管把雞蛋推向另一端。這就是消化道如何自我清理的過程。
In order to push out bits of food particles left over from a meal, your gastrointestinal tract creates waves of contractions all along the length of the intestines at a rate of two or three per minute. All of this activity in your GI tract when you're hungry can be very noisy, as anyone who has been in the middle of a pre-lunch meeting when stomachs started rumbling can tell you.
為了排出餐后少數的食物殘渣,你的消化道每2至3分鐘就會產生一個沿著腸道傳播的收縮運動。當你感到饑餓的時候,消化道里所有的活動都會顯得聒噪。在午餐前開會時肚子突然咕咕作響的員工會告訴你這有多么尷尬。