Swallowing is a mechanical action done with your muscles; that's how astronauts can eat and how you can eat or drink upside down if you were really wanting to.
this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2026
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Saw someone drinking a whole beer from a funnel while being being held upside down. People do this and I basically die when drinking a sip of water while lying in bed.
Maybe the issue is that you're too horizontal? Try doing a handstand first.
And don't forget the funnel.
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Peristalsis
That’s a lot of fucking honey!
There is no such thing
No, honey definitely exists
Honey is a lie told to us by the bees in order to trick us into building beehives for them
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good question actually, the esophagus can squeeze things towards the stomach without gravity's help.
It’s even cooler than that: The esophagus can squeeze things towards the stomach against gravity. You can drink water while hanging upside down. You’ll also get a nose full of water because your sinuses would be below your mouth… But once it’s in your throat and you’re swallowing, it’ll make it to your stomach just fine.
If you wanted to avoid the sinus problem, I guess you could just lay on your back on a steep incline. Not fully upside down, so your sinus cavity is still above your mouth. That way the water would hit the back of your throat where you could swallow it, instead of just draining straight into your sinuses.
what!? i can clearly remember being like 10 hanging upside down from my knees on a jungle gym and drinking water from a bottle and having no problem at all and proving my mom that i wouldnt choke doing that
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I'm too lazy to find it now, but one of the tests they tried long before NASA started sending people into space was eating a banana upside down where they figured out the digestive tract can function against gravity.
There was also an encyclopedia brown story about this in which I remember Geese and Ducks rely on gravity to swallow, therefore they wouldn't be able to eat in space.
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I think there was a science experiments book for kids that dared me to drink water upside down through a straw while hanging from monkey bars or something. It was meant to show how our body deliberately moves food towards the stomach instead of solely relying on gravity, but instead it showed that I my legs were too weak.
A shame these experiments are deemed to dangerous nowadays and people have to show their ignorance online, simply because the new metal straws have pierced the brains of anyone who did them.
because the new metal straws have pierced the brains of anyone who did them.
I am confused by this, straws go in the mouth, if people are sticking them in their brains, they're doing it wrong, or are you saying there is a crack team of assasins out there who've vowed to keep this knowledge secret in a particularly gruesome manner?
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Yeah, keep posing this images, don't complain when Freezer attacks looking for the other 7 balls
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Some poor soul has never watched Bill Nye the Science Guy... what has the world come too... D:
Most of the non-English speaking world hasn't seen him as kids. I don't remember where I learned about peristalsis, but I grew up just fine.
This was my jam as a kid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Upon_a_Time..._Life
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This was legitimately a significant concern that early space programs had. Like, how well would people be able to swallow in free fall, would certain kinds of food cause problems? The food experiments during the Gemini program are pretty interesting
I've just realised that because of my esophageal dysmotility I wouldn't be able to eat in space.
Is this a writing prompt about being left behind on a dying earth because you'd starve on your voyage to Mars?
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Given how filthy the ISS is, I don't know if I'd want to eat anything not nuked into oblivion.
Why would it be filthy? It's not like they get a lot of dirt out there
Dust comes from human skin flakes.
There a giant vacuum though.
Just open two opposite windows.
Well that didn't work (windows outlook debacle).
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Does this happen to your blood too?
There's a slight increase in the blood pressure in your upper body, and a small possibility of thrombosis, blood clots forming in your veins. But after 50+ years of space flight no one has had complications.
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Veins are small so capillary action keeps things in order.
With no gravity though you'll have higher blood pressure to your head (and less to the legs)- it kinda makes astronauts faces a bit puffy. iirc this can slightly negatively affect vision long term.
Most of your body processes are in a small enough space that capillary action overtakes gravity.
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If you put it on a sandwich, yes.
I don’t know about you guys, but I just open my throat straight down to my stomach and pour the food in.
Baby bird style
"bread"
Oh that's interesting, I wonder if it's easier to get heartburn in space? It's common to need to sit upright to keep the acid down.
Gulping in.
Can you swallow things when you're laying flat? I imagine swallowing food in space would be no more difficult.
You can swallow things while dangling upside down. The esophagus is strong enough to work against gravity.
But liquids are a little bit more difficult, because they tend to flow in unexpected places in the mouth/sinuses/nose before trying to swallow.
Once I had to drink barium while being tilted upside down on a big table while they watched it with X-rays… apparently that’s a medical test lol I didn’t find it anymore difficult than drinking normally personally but it has to do with the strength of your swallow most of all, which is what they were testing at the time.
We get it, you're good at swallowing
Hey wyd Saturday night
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Ask your mom!
sorry, I'll see myself out.
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