# What am I smelling when my pee smells like canned soup?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-am-i-smelling-when-my-pee-smells-like-canned-soup/766139>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 17, 2016, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-am-i-smelling-when-my-pee-smells-like-canned-soup/766139 "2016-09-17T06:33:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![watergallop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3bc359/32.png) [@watergallop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watergallop)\
**Post date:** [September 17, 2016, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-am-i-smelling-when-my-pee-smells-like-canned-soup/766139/1 "2016-09-17T06:33:22Z")

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Whenever I eat canned soup, even the fancy kind, a couple hours later, I pee and it smells strongly like the soup. Nothing else makes my pee smell like itself (besides asparagus). What ingredient in the soup is it, whose smell is surviving after it’s been converted to pee?

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**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\
**Post date:** [September 17, 2016, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-am-i-smelling-when-my-pee-smells-like-canned-soup/766139/2 "2016-09-17T08:18:05Z")

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Salt is odourless, so although canned soup is salty, it can’t be that.

I think you’re smelling amino acids, which are a product of extended cooking of protein-rich foods.