I changed my diet to include a lot more fruit. I’m trying to eat healthier. The main side effect is that I seem to be both irregular, and producing a lot more flatulence. The gas itself is extremely rank. While rank may have its privileges I’d prefer not to have it. What can I do to balance things out so that these two problems go away?
I was going to suggest that you make certain you had enough gas to get out of Nebraska. Sounds like you do. 
I think the answer, paradoxically, is more fiber. Since you’re probably already eating lots of fruits and veggies, maybe try one of the fiber drinks.
Oh, and how’s it going with the groundhogs this year? We had our first a couple of weeks ago. We kept filling up the holes he dug, and we think he’s gone. Or hibernating.
Along with the fruit, try some yogurt, plain and unsweetened, with live cultures. I used to buy it by the quart. BTW, whole-milk yoghurt is much more palatable than the low-fat or no-fat stuff.
Bran or unrefined grains will also help with the fiber, as will crispy, raw veggies along with the fruit. Ginger helps a lot with digestion, too, particularly when made into a hot tea. Yogurt’s really good, too, but if you’re lactose intolerant you can get acidopholous (sp?) cultures and take a few teaspoons of that.
I’ve always had this problem when I go on one of my periodical “health binges”.
But I also get it when I eat a great deal of unhealthy, fatty food when I’ve been healthy for a while. Or when I go to a different country with very different cuisine.
It seems that any radical dietary change has the same result.
I find that it just sorts itself out after a while. I always assumed that the body just need time to get used to your new diet.
I find that fatty food, especially Indian restaurant food, causes me excessive gut bloating. It makes me look like I’ve swallowed a basketball. I have to wind myself by bending over, rubbing my belly and slapping myself on the back — rather as one would wind a baby.
The gut and its bacteria find it difficult to deal with large amounts of fat, and produce a larger than normal volume of gas as a result. From what people have said, any change in dietary habits that “takes the gut bacteria by surprise,” as it were, is likely to have a similar effect.
Like previous posters, I find ginger tea and live Greek yoghurt to be very helpful.
These symptoms can also be caused by a viral infection. A couple of years ago, there was a bout of gastric flu at my place of work. The symptoms were bloating and diarrhoea - similar to those of IBS. Perhaps IBS is triggered by an initial viral infection?
Just sitting here, quietly burping and farting, as usual.
Be patient, Scyl. Anytime you change to a diet like this, it takes your body a while to adjust, but it will settle down eventually.
Beans and fibrous veggies contain lots of polysaccharides that are indigestible and wind up in the large intestine where they are chomped down by the resident bacteria. You’re giving them a feast after a famine. They need to get used to it.
I know when we decided to start consuming lots more legumes, at first we were practically bobbing on the ceiling (the bathroom ceiling, that is). Now it’s not much of problem.
I just had to chime in here an let y’all know that this thread has been a virtual D-light of visual imagery. I can’t wait until I get a scratch 'n sniff monitor.