After digging into a delicious meal, you might realize that your pants' waistline feels snugger than before. But why does that happen? How much can the stomach expand after a big meal to accommodate all that food?
An empty adult stomach starts as a folded pouch about the size of a soda can — 0.5 liter (16 ounces) — and during a meal it can grow to the size of a 2 liter (0.5 gallon) plastic soda bottle, Dr. Arthur Beyder, an associate professor of medicine and physiology at the Mayo Clinic, told Live Science.
