Yep, your farts can tell you a lot about what’s going on with your digestion! Didn’t you just know that I’d get around to making you smell your farts? 😉
Okay, to review a bit, remember that it is normal to have a bit of gas when you pass feces. But passing gas in between feces is not good, it means too much fermentation is going on and over time that can lead to IBS, Crohn’s and systemic candidiasis.
Foul-smelling gas and feces is usually due to poor protein digestion. Since protein digestion starts in the stomach and is continued in the small intestine, it’s usually a combo of low stomach acids, pancreatic enzymes, particularly protease, and sometimes low bile salts since protiens are usually combined with fats. Eat smaller portions and follow the guidelines for digestive power, such as not drinking a lot of fluids or eating a lot of fruit with a high-protein meal. A bit of cooked fruit sauce is okay, like the way we have cranberry with turkey, or pineapple with sweet and sour chicken, or lingonberry with swedish meat balls. But don’t follow a meat meal with a huge raw fruit dessert! Especially if you have company! 😉 If you have chronic foul-smelling gas, best to take the acid stomach test.
If eating fats causes nausea, burping, sudden feelings of illness like you’re about to vomit or actual pain, and then you have smelly gas or slick floating stools or a visible oil slick in the toilet bowl, that’s all poor fat digestion. Fats are digested by bile, which is produced by the liver and held at the ready by the gallbladder, and also lipase from the pancreas. It could be due to not enough pancreatic enzymes, bile salts or heavily contaminated bile salts due to eating things like margarine, deep-fried foods, commercial salad dressings, and a low-fiber diet or low-fat diet that caused a bunch of stones. Liver and bile cleansing is in order, which means carrot juice, carrot salad, liver herbs, stone dissolvers and perhaps liver flushing.
If you have lots of gas with no odor really, you’re not just lucky, you’re probably having problems digesting carbohydrates. For that, lactic acid is the best response. Lactic acid is found in fermented cabbage (cortido, kim chee, sauerkraut), or you can actually buy lactic acid tabs. Digestive enzymes are also good, as are organic salts which can be found in Bieler Broth, or zucchini and celery.
If milk and milk products give you diarrhea, gas and bad breath, you are lactose intolerant and should avoid milk unless it is hot milk simmered with spices (see recipes in FAQ) or cultured milk/kefir, and even then only in small amounts, rarely. Digestive enzymes will help with this too.
These are the foods that are most likely to cause gas:
beans, especially when combined with sugar and ketchup. When they are soaked overnight and then slow-cooked with carminitive spices (cumin, turmeric, garlic) they are much less likely to cause gas to form.
vegetables such as broccoli, cabbage, brussels sprouts, onions, artichokes, and asparagus, especially if raw. Eat them cooked or fermented.
broccoli
fruits, such as pears, apples, and peaches. Eat them cooked with cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, nutmeg.
whole grains, such as whole wheat and bran. Bran is very hard to digest, one of those foods that we think is good for us but in fact is not great. Best to get the benefits of bran from wheat germ oil.
soft drinks and fruit drinks. High in sugar, the sugars bypass the stomach, hit the small intestine and ferment, especially when combined with other foods.
milk and milk products, such as cheese and ice cream, and packaged foods prepared with lactose, such as bread, cereal, and salad dressing.
foods containing sorbitol, such as dietetic foods and sugarfree candies and gums.