# Soymilk and flatulence- slightly TMI **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 14, 2008, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soymilk-and-flatulence-slightly-tmi/433498 "2008-01-14T17:58:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![RedRosesForMe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/91b2a8/32.png) [@RedRosesForMe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedRosesForMe)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2008, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soymilk-and-flatulence-slightly-tmi/433498/1 "2008-01-14T17:58:51Z")
I love soymilk. Regular milk grosses me out. But, I don’t always have the money to buy soymilk, so I don’t drink it all the time. But when I do, oh my, you have to beware. It makes my farts smell like Satan’s sweaty jock strap. It doesn’t make me fart more, but it does make my farts, which are usually rather inoffensive as farts go, smell like absolute shit. It burns your nostrils. So, why? Any theories? Does anyone else have this problem? Other soy products like cheese, tofu, veggie burgers, etc. do not have this effect. ---
**Author:** ![coffeecat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coffeecat/32/3405_2.png) [@coffeecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coffeecat)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2008, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soymilk-and-flatulence-slightly-tmi/433498/2 "2008-01-14T18:57:02Z")
Tofu used to do that to me, until my body got used to it. Beans _are_ the musical fruit, you know. 😃 Have you tried Beano? ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2008, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soymilk-and-flatulence-slightly-tmi/433498/3 "2008-01-15T03:43:01Z")
[QUOTE=RedRosesForMe] I love soymilk. Regular milk grosses me out. But, I don’t always have the money to buy soymilk, so I don’t drink it all the time. But when I do, oh my, you have to beware. It makes my farts smell like Satan’s sweaty jock strap. It doesn’t make me fart more, but it does make my farts, which are usually rather inoffensive as farts go, smell like absolute shit. It burns your nostrils. So, why? Any theories? Does anyone else have this problem? Other soy products like cheese, tofu, veggie burgers, etc. do not have this effect. [/QUOTE] Try this article: [http://www.westonaprice.org/soy/soyflatulence.html](http://www.westonaprice.org/soy/soyflatulence.html) As far as which soy products have the most effect, it’s related to how much of the offending oligosaccharide and starch substrates are delivered to your large intestine. A glass of soymilk might transit straight through while a meal might not, in addition to the underlying quantities of the substrates themselves in the various soy foods (and the varieties of soy beans used for their manufacture). ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2008, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soymilk-and-flatulence-slightly-tmi/433498/4 "2008-01-15T04:23:52Z")
I find soy anything causes the old trouser trombone to sound more often (and more powerfully) than usual, but don’t experience particularly offensive aroma unless I have overconsumed same (hellooo, soynuts?). I can’t believe I’m sharing information about my own personal ass gas on a public web forum. Gracious, what a wonderful age we’re living in. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2008, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soymilk-and-flatulence-slightly-tmi/433498/5 "2008-01-15T12:21:19Z")
Science Fiction weighs in on soy flatulence: Frederick Pohl, in **The Merchants’ War** (IIRC) has his protagonist claim that you could tell a home that subsisted mainly on soy products (rather than animal meat) because of the characteristic odor, which I take to be a comment on flatulence. Spider Robinson, in **Variable Star** , the novel he wrote out of Heinlein’s working notes, has his character claim that soy-eating vegetarians produce more flatulence, but it doesn’t smell as bad. Which the OP here would seem to contradict. For some reason, this is the stuff from Sf that sticks in my mind. Not the glory and wonder of the Universe, and Man’s attempts to understand and work with it, but the details of farts.