I’m not one to analyze stool, but I did happen to notice tonight, among some GI distress the following:
I though that I had diarrhea. “Crap,” I say.
So I finish, and am getting up, when I see… Whoa?!
There are leaves of vegetables floating around the bowl, along with solid feces.
So the “suspected diarrhea” was really little pieces of partially digested vegetables. I know that corn syndrome comes from the body’s inability to break part of it down… but I’ve never noticed it with standard green leafy vegetables.
Yup. Salad with Romaine lettuce exclusively (well, there were other things, but no other kind of lettuce) this afternoon for lunch. That’s weird, though, because I’ve never had a problem with it. Today was, however, the first day that I made a salad out of a whole head of romaine instead of buying the prebagged salad mix. I hope it wasn’t that, because I can make my own for less than half the cost of those bags… (and we’ll have romaine in our garden at some point.)
Your body does digest corn. What you see (usually) is just the empty husks (and those are cellulose, which isn’t digestable) However- Corn *is *rather hard to digest, and can cause stomach distress and gas.
Many leafy green veggies are mostly fiber and cellulose, both of which “pass through”. This is one of the benefits of such- you get fiber and your bowels move. Don’t worry- usually most of the food value has been digested out. One exception being the iron in spinach, which the human digestive system really can’t get at.
I suggest more fiber, and more probiotics (the “live” part of "live culture yogurt). Most Americans don’t get enough of either.
I eat a thing of yogurt with lunch every day, so that’s probably not it.
It’s not a fiber problem, at least I don’t think so. I think that it might have something to do with my eating habits getting weird, though. For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been waking up at 11am or so, eating a poptart or two at about 1, eating “lunch” at 5, and then eating a few cookies or something at 11-ish.
Hmm, check to make sure your yogurt is “live culture”. But yes, a drastic change in your eating habits, as you described, will change your BM habits. I think that’s it.
Incidentally- that advice “get more fiber and more probiotics” is good advice for almost every one here. CR just did an article on the benefits of probiotics.
Also note that “regularity” doesn’t mean one BM at the same time every day. That’s BS. It’s better to have a couple, and "the same exact time every day’ isn’t nessesarily a good thing… or a bad thing mind you. It’s just an indication of a habit, rather than healthly bowels.
I find extreme heat can loosen my bowels and their products, as can abrupt changes in habits. Not to mention the occassional bit of food that’s slightly “off”.
There are a lot of reasons your used food can emerge in unusual form.
If it was just one episode I wouldn’t worry about it too much - it’s when you have multiple episodes that you need to be concerned.
No cramps? Bowels aren’t liquid? No blood? Unless you have one of those three signs (there are others that don’t apply to you, such are severe constipation), you’re likely all right. I assume you see your MD every so often anyway, might as well mention it. If you haven’t had a check up in a year- why not go get one anyway?
TMI!
After a hearty dinner of a buffalo steak on a steamed spinach bed I immediately had to go to the bathroom. For number 2 of course… My log was half normal solid brown the other half was all compressed green spinach…
