Sure, but that's another hack.

Evolution's solution: cough it out

Better solution: don't send food, water, and air down the same pipe in the first place

I mean, no competent engineer would design the plumbing for a building such that the same pipes were used for water and air at different times, right?

a software engineer would. we call it "multiplexing".

That reminds a bit of systems where the data plane and control plane are the same. Like the old AT&T phone network.

No its not just cough it out. The mechanism to avoid food and fluids is a lot more complex than that.