EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT FARTS, BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK.
#1 - What
makes farts stink?
The odor of farts comes from small amounts of hydrogen sulfide gas and mercaptans
in the mixture. These compounds contain sulfur. Nitrogen-rich compounds such
as skatole and indole also add to the stench of farts. The more sulfur-rich
your diet, the more sulfides and mercaptans will be produced by the bacteria
in your guts, and the more your farts will stink. Foods such as cauliflower,
eggs and meat are notorious for producing smelly farts, whereas beans produce
large amounts of not particularly stinky farts.
#2 - Why are stinky farts generally warmer and quieter than regular farts?
Most fart gas comes from swallowed air and consists largely of nitrogen
and carbon dioxide, the oxygen having been absorbed by the time it reaches the
anal opening. These gases are odorless, although they often pick up other (and
more odiferous) components on the way through the bowel. They emerge from the
anus in fairly large bubbles at body temperature. A person can often achieve
a good sound with these voluminous farts, but they are commonly (but not always!)
mundane with respect to odor, and don't feel particularly warm. Another major
source of fart gas is bacterial action. Bacterial fermentation and digestion
processes produce heat as a byproduct as well as various pungent gases. The
resulting bubbles of gas tend to be small, hot, and concentrated with stinky
bacterial metabolic products. These emerge as the notorious, warm, SBD (Silent-But-Deadly),
often in amounts too small to produce a good sound, but excelling in stench.
#3- How much gas does a normal person pass per day?
On average, a person produces about half a liter of fart gas per day, distributed
over an average of about fourteen daily farts. Whereas it may be difficult for
you to determine your daily flatus volume, you can certainly keep track of your
daily numerical fart count. You might try this as a science fair project: Keep
a journal of everything you eat and a count of your farts. You might make a
note of the potency of their odor as well. See if you can discover a relationship
between what you eat, how much you fart, and how much they smell.
#4 - How long does it take fart gas to travel to someone else's nose?
Fart travel time depends on atmospheric conditions such as humidity, temperature
and wind speed and direction, the molecular weight of the fart particles, and
the distance between the fart transmitter and the fart receiver. Farts also
disperse (spread out) as they leave the source, and their potency diminishes
with dilution. Generally, if the fart is not detected within a few seconds,
it will be too dilute for perception and will be lost into the atmosphere forever.
Exceptional conditions exist when the fart is released into a small enclosed
area such as an elevator, a small room, or a car. These conditions limit the
amount of dilution possible, and the fart may remain in a smellable concentration
for a long period of time, until it condenses on the walls.
#5 - Why is
there a 13 to 20 second delay between farting and the time it starts to smell?
Actually, the fart stinks immediately upon emergence, but it takes several
seconds for the odor to travel to the farter's nostrils. If farts could travel
at the speed of sound, we would smell them almost instantly, at the same time
we hear them.
#6 - Is it true that some people never fart?
No, not if they're alive. People even fart shortly after death.
#7 - Why are beans so notorious for making people fart?
Beans contain sugars that we humans cannot digest. When these sugars reach
our intestines, the bacteria go wild, have a big feast, and make lots of gas!
Other notorious fart-producing foods include corn, bell peppers, cabbage, milk,
and raisins. A friend of mine had a dog who was exceptionally fond of apples
and turnips. The dog would eat these things and then get prodigious gas. A dog's
digestive system is not equipped to handle such vegetable matter, so the dog's
bacteria worked overtime to produce remarkable flatulence.
#8 - What things other than diet can make a person fart more than usual?
People who swallow a lot of air fart more than people who don't. This can
be cured somewhat by chewing with your mouth closed. Nervous people with fast
moving bowels will fart more because less air is absorbed out of the intestines.
Some disease conditions can cause excess flatulence. And going up in an airplane
or other low-pressure environment can cause the gas inside you to expand and
emerge as flatulence.
#9 - Is a fart really just a burp that comes out the wrong end?
No, a burp emerges from the stomach and has a different chemical composition
from a fart. Farts have less atmospheric gas content and more bacterial gas
content than burps.
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