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