I’ve had several Friends over the years who are (various types of) Vegitarians. Each person has remarked on the issue of flatulence and how it’s a problem. Seveal remadies seem to main stays in thier lives:
The product “Bean-o”
Parlsly with the meal, this is especailly tasty when added to hummus and cous-cous
Mint sprigs with the meal. It’s Rather tasty with Bean Salad
Sage after the meal (I donot know why)
Tyme Sticks, chewed
Perhaps “Scott” should have a chat with M/M Stinker or simply present said person with a free bottle of Bean-O :eek:
I went vegetarian 13 years ago. For the first two weeks, things were, let’s say, digestively unstable, while my body adjusted to the new intake. After that 2 week period, things were back to normal – no more farting than anyone else in the dorm rooms, that is. I don’t fart much, and I don’t smell because I exercise proper hygiene. In short, I walk among the carnivores unnoticed and unsmelled.
Of course, beans and broccoli will cause farting regardless of the rest of your diet (beef chili and beef broccoli will cause it, too).
There was absolutely no change in the amount of farting when I “went vegan” and eliminated dairy products and eggs from my diet. I have a lot of vegan friends, and haven’t noticed any bad odors from them.
Finally, shame on the vegan who wastes his breath haranguing his friends and family about the cruelty of their diets. The best advertisement for the vegan diet is to be a happy, healthy, reasonable vegan who can discuss the benefits of the diet without being self-righteous.
A great resource for people who want to learn more about the reasonable vegan or vegetarian lifestyle is the website www.whyvegan.com.
A bit of experience to the reverse: whenever I go onto Classic Atkins (basically cheese/meat/eggs and a small amount of ‘salad’ type vegetables) one of the things I notice is a total absence of farting. None.
Of course, it has plenty of off-setting disadvantages (like that bad breathe thing.)
Ok, let me start off by saying that the Staff Writer’s first paragraph was not called for. But, to keep a decent sense of humor and avoid the pitfall of taking oneself too seriously, I will move on…
The chemistry of poot stink has been adequately addressed, so I will refrain. There is a great website addressing the issue further though: http://www.heptune.com/farts.html
Indeed, over-zealousness and proselytizing can be quite annoying and disrespectful. This Scott fella must be a newbie, or just a narcissistic a-hole. I’ve been a vegan for 11 years, and a lacto-ovo veggie for 2 years before that, and was certainly on a mission to convert the world for a few years there, but I learned that this was not the way towards success or happiness. If Scott can’t be respectful, steer him towards the same link another person suggested, whyvegan, aka veganoutreach.org. These people are highly sane, pragmatic, sensible and righteous.
I like farting, so do you. Sometimes my farts stink, and so do yours. When I am particularly gassy, I find a place to vent my exhaust where nobody will be killed, like the bathroom or a filled elevator (hee hee). Actually, while this natural bodily function, not everyone wan’t to inhale other’s colonic gasses. To vent in your presence knowing that you find it objectionable is sadistic at worst, inconsiderate at best. College buddies will intentionally fart and parhaps even (unintentionally) shart on one another (as my roommate once did…eeewwwww), and as such it is all in good sophmoric fun, but if you are not into this kind of horseplay, it is simply disrespectful. If Scott’s ass is a .44 caliber as you say, an open-air Dutch Oven is just wrong.
Lastly, to defend the honor of us vegan folk, while we do not claim that our “shit don’t stank”. Our gass, in general, while perhaps more frequent and voluminous, is certainly not more deadly. It is all in what you eat. High fiber diets will produce more gass, but as mentioned, it is sulphur containing foods that pack the punch. I find garlic to be numero uno in the armor-piercing hollow-tip bullet fart category. Asparagus, cabbage, broc/cauliflower…all sure fire winners. Omnivores eat offending foods as frequently as do herbivores, period.
The world’s worst fart is a lactose intollerant fart, bar none. If you eat dairy but do not produce the lactase enzyme in sufficient quantities, you will be farting rancid milk farts that will cause gagging among the unsuspecting. Passing undigested lactose is a difficult prospect and the body will revolt. For such people, leave off the dairy and watch the butt blossoms subside.
Funny topic, but take it easy on the vegan demonizing, we are simply following our conscience and live with awareness towards the sufferings of others. Scott, in this regard, should be more aware of the suffering of his companions.
As a public service let me mention this:
Rinse your beans!
(The kind you eat, sicko.) The big gas-producing carbos are mostly water-soluble.
So whether from a can, or cooked yourself, do yourself and your nearest and dearest and favor, and rinse those bad boys well.
While not myself a vegetarian, I do have a lot of vegetarian relatives (all ovo-lacto, not vegan). They all eat a lot of beans, and certainly the Musical Fruit isn’t nearly as musical for them as it is for the general populace, due, presumably, to the acclimitization to which Cecil referred. And I haven’t noticed any particular difference in the odor, either.
Incidentally, another degassing agent used by them is seaweed, though I have only their word on that, having not eaten enough seaweed-laden beans to tell the difference.
It was one of Cecil’s columns, not a staff report. You have to accept a certain amount of humor from him.
Scott was the guy who wrote the letter to Cecil, not the vegan.
Finally, one from the column itself
I’m not a cow expert, but I understand that most of the methane produced by cows exits via the front orifice. It’s mainly produced in the cow’s first(?) stomach (where the bacteria break down cellulose) rather than in the intestines. Termites also produce lots of methane via the same process, although in that case I couldn’t say which orifice it exits (nor do I want to know).
At any rate, the comparison of cows to human vegetarians in terms of methane production is not valid since humans don’t digest cellulose.
Scott’s friend may be intolerant of something in his diet, which makes his ‘effluent’ more offensive.
This happened to me. I’m not a vegan, but I do eat organic, and in the interest of health spent years packing in the whole wheat and yogurt. Among other symptoms (like a racing heartbeat after meals, and intestinal pain) there was really horrible flatulence. (Really horrible – I’m not sure how my cats survived it, seeing as how their bodies are so much smaller!)
Two years ago I discovered I was intolerant of gluten and casein. After I eliminated these foods from my diet I was also pleasantly surprised by another side effect: no more noxious farts.
I always blamed the burrito blasts on the refried beans, but it was actually the whole wheat tortilla and the cheese garnish that was to blame. Now even black bean chili doesn’t make me rumble the way I used to.
Long story even longer, the conventional wisdom about a ‘healthy’ diet isn’t always applicable – everybody’s body is different.
The fellow in question is not having the problem because of the content of his diet. There is something, probably a combination of living and dead, in his G.I. tract that is generating the gases that smell so foul. He should try: 1. clean out laxative regimen followed by 2. pharmaceutical grade charcoal used to bind toxins followed by 3. capsules of intestinal bacteria (lactobacillus) followed by if not successful a visit to a gastroenterologist.
MilliCal has amazed me again. Our precocious 7 year old caught me at The Straight Dope on the computer, and asked about Slug Signorino’s illustration. I explained it to her, and the question that lead to it.
“But daddy, that’s not right,” she explained, patiently and clinically. “Farts from vegetables don’t smell bad. Farts from meat do.”
As a sufferer from lactose intolerance I must concur with my distinguished fellow Dopers. Nothing stinks so bad or lingers longer than a lactose-laden fart. I am trying to find out if there are mosquitoes in Italy, after a 3-week trip last year (prior to finding out what exactly caused my malaise) I single-handedly fumigated Italy. Not something a lady should be proud of… and I am not. I promise.
