WEBVTT - BrainStuff Classics: Do Vegetarians' Farts Smell Worse?

0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:06.400
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hi

0:00:06.519 --> 0:00:09.400
<v Speaker 1>brain Stuff Lauren vogel Bomb here with a classic episode

0:00:09.440 --> 0:00:12.920
<v Speaker 1>from our archives. In this one, we go into the

0:00:13.119 --> 0:00:20.800
<v Speaker 1>perhaps impolite but fascinating world of farts. Hey, they're brain stuff,

0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:24.160
<v Speaker 1>Lauren vogel Bomb here. It's as Bart Simpson once said,

0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:27.120
<v Speaker 1>beans beans the musical fruit. The more you eat, the

0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:30.680
<v Speaker 1>more you toot. Beans have a reputation as a musical fruit,

0:00:31.000 --> 0:00:33.880
<v Speaker 1>but for all their noisiness, they don't usually make farts

0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:37.920
<v Speaker 1>smell worse. The same is true for most flatulens causing foods,

0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:40.840
<v Speaker 1>such as asparagus or chickpeas. They may make you fart

0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:44.880
<v Speaker 1>more often, but they don't make your farts particularly stinky. Sure,

0:00:44.960 --> 0:00:48.839
<v Speaker 1>a vegetarians diet based on nuts, fruit, vegetables, and lagoons

0:00:49.120 --> 0:00:51.720
<v Speaker 1>is rich in fiber, but fiber alone is not to

0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:54.760
<v Speaker 1>blame for the increased gas production that comes with plant

0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:57.800
<v Speaker 1>based eating habits. The culprit is actually a type of

0:00:57.800 --> 0:01:02.160
<v Speaker 1>sugar molecule called oligo saccharai. Oligo saccharides are too large

0:01:02.200 --> 0:01:04.600
<v Speaker 1>to be easily absorbed through the wall of the small intestine,

0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:08.280
<v Speaker 1>so they move through the large intestines unfettered until they

0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:10.880
<v Speaker 1>meet some of the seventy plus kinds of bacteria that

0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:14.800
<v Speaker 1>live there. As these bacteria feast on the all ego saccharides,

0:01:15.000 --> 0:01:19.319
<v Speaker 1>they create an abundance of gassy byproducts. Colloquially speaking, the

0:01:19.360 --> 0:01:23.520
<v Speaker 1>bacteria fart and you fart out their farts. While the

0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:26.320
<v Speaker 1>jury is still out on whether vegetarians fart more often

0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:30.240
<v Speaker 1>than omnivores, there is evidence that vegetarian farts maybe among

0:01:30.280 --> 0:01:33.560
<v Speaker 1>the least noxious, or not as noxious as a meat

0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:36.679
<v Speaker 1>eater s farts. Anyway, the credit for smelly farts goes

0:01:36.720 --> 0:01:39.040
<v Speaker 1>in part to meat that is consumed as part of

0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:42.440
<v Speaker 1>an omnivorous diet. For the most part, meat contains high

0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:45.920
<v Speaker 1>levels of sulfur and sulfur Latin foods produce more odors

0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:49.440
<v Speaker 1>as they're digested. When bacteria in the digestive system break

0:01:49.480 --> 0:01:52.920
<v Speaker 1>down foods, it produces all kinds of byproducts when they

0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:56.440
<v Speaker 1>break down foods rich in sulfur. The byproducts include sulfides

0:01:56.480 --> 0:02:00.559
<v Speaker 1>and mercpton's, the gases that lend their unmistakable smell to farts.

0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:04.200
<v Speaker 1>Hydrogen sulfide in particular causes past gas to have an

0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:09.040
<v Speaker 1>odor reminiscent of rotten eggs. The other gases produced during digestion, nitrogen,

0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:13.880
<v Speaker 1>carbon dioxide, oxygen, and methane are virtually odorless. By contrast,

0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:18.400
<v Speaker 1>most vegetables produce fewer smelly byproducts during digestion. But don't

0:02:18.440 --> 0:02:20.680
<v Speaker 1>think that if you don't eat meat you'll never have

0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:23.720
<v Speaker 1>smelly farts. Any food that is high in sulfites, such

0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:27.440
<v Speaker 1>as cabbage, broccoli, onions, brussels sprouts, peas, leaks, and garlic,

0:02:27.760 --> 0:02:31.880
<v Speaker 1>will result in sulfide and mercantin rich gas production. So

0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:35.080
<v Speaker 1>even though omnivores and vegetarians may not have much in

0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:37.240
<v Speaker 1>common when it comes to selecting a main dish off

0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:39.799
<v Speaker 1>the menu, they can raise their forks and unity at

0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:42.919
<v Speaker 1>the wonders of gut bacteria. Regardless of what we eat,

0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:46.320
<v Speaker 1>we all fart, and sometimes it's smellier because of what

0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:54.079
<v Speaker 1>we've eaten. Today's episode was written by Laurie L. Dove

0:02:54.120 --> 0:02:57.320
<v Speaker 1>and produced by Tristo McNeil and Tyler Clang. For more

0:02:57.360 --> 0:03:00.359
<v Speaker 1>on this and lots of other completely dignified topics, visit

0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:03.040
<v Speaker 1>how stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is a production

0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:05.480
<v Speaker 1>of my Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,

0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:08.480
<v Speaker 1>visit their heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:09.760
<v Speaker 1>listen to your favorite shows,