Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hi
Speaker 1: brain Stuff Lauren vogel Bomb here with a classic episode
Speaker 1: from our archives. In this one, we go into the
Speaker 1: perhaps impolite but fascinating world of farts. Hey, they're brain stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren vogel Bomb here. It's as Bart Simpson once said,
Speaker 1: beans beans the musical fruit. The more you eat, the
Speaker 1: more you toot. Beans have a reputation as a musical fruit,
Speaker 1: but for all their noisiness, they don't usually make farts
Speaker 1: smell worse. The same is true for most flatulens causing foods,
Speaker 1: such as asparagus or chickpeas. They may make you fart
Speaker 1: more often, but they don't make your farts particularly stinky. Sure,
Speaker 1: a vegetarians diet based on nuts, fruit, vegetables, and lagoons
Speaker 1: is rich in fiber, but fiber alone is not to
Speaker 1: blame for the increased gas production that comes with plant
Speaker 1: based eating habits. The culprit is actually a type of
Speaker 1: sugar molecule called oligo saccharai. Oligo saccharides are too large
Speaker 1: to be easily absorbed through the wall of the small intestine,
Speaker 1: so they move through the large intestines unfettered until they
Speaker 1: meet some of the seventy plus kinds of bacteria that
Speaker 1: live there. As these bacteria feast on the all ego saccharides,
Speaker 1: they create an abundance of gassy byproducts. Colloquially speaking, the
Speaker 1: bacteria fart and you fart out their farts. While the
Speaker 1: jury is still out on whether vegetarians fart more often
Speaker 1: than omnivores, there is evidence that vegetarian farts maybe among
Speaker 1: the least noxious, or not as noxious as a meat
Speaker 1: eater s farts. Anyway, the credit for smelly farts goes
Speaker 1: in part to meat that is consumed as part of
Speaker 1: an omnivorous diet. For the most part, meat contains high
Speaker 1: levels of sulfur and sulfur Latin foods produce more odors
Speaker 1: as they're digested. When bacteria in the digestive system break
Speaker 1: down foods, it produces all kinds of byproducts when they
Speaker 1: break down foods rich in sulfur. The byproducts include sulfides
Speaker 1: and mercpton's, the gases that lend their unmistakable smell to farts.
Speaker 1: Hydrogen sulfide in particular causes past gas to have an
Speaker 1: odor reminiscent of rotten eggs. The other gases produced during digestion, nitrogen,
Speaker 1: carbon dioxide, oxygen, and methane are virtually odorless. By contrast,
Speaker 1: most vegetables produce fewer smelly byproducts during digestion. But don't
Speaker 1: think that if you don't eat meat you'll never have
Speaker 1: smelly farts. Any food that is high in sulfites, such
Speaker 1: as cabbage, broccoli, onions, brussels sprouts, peas, leaks, and garlic,
Speaker 1: will result in sulfide and mercantin rich gas production. So
Speaker 1: even though omnivores and vegetarians may not have much in
Speaker 1: common when it comes to selecting a main dish off
Speaker 1: the menu, they can raise their forks and unity at
Speaker 1: the wonders of gut bacteria. Regardless of what we eat,
Speaker 1: we all fart, and sometimes it's smellier because of what
Speaker 1: we've eaten. Today's episode was written by Laurie L. Dove
Speaker 1: and produced by Tristo McNeil and Tyler Clang. For more
Speaker 1: on this and lots of other completely dignified topics, visit
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is a production
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