Blue Waffle: Hoax or Real STI? Origin of Fake Disease
Remedies For Foul Smelling Gas
Gas is a common part of living. We pass gas at least 14 times each day. One of the main causes of gas is swallowing air from:
Eating certain foods can also cause gas, such as:
What foods make farts smell bad?
It's often something you eat that causes bad-smelling gas. Common culprits are:
Beans. Beans contain sugars that our bodies can't digest well. Bacteria that break these down in your large intestine release gasses like methane that contain sulfur. This is what causes the rotten-egg like smell.
Cruciferous vegetables. Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cabbage are examples of vegetables in the cruciferous family. These veggies are high in sulfur that can give you smelly gas.
Other sulfur-rich foods. Eggs, garlic, grains, meat, beer, wine, nuts, garlic, and onions are also high in sulfur.
Dairy products. If you having trouble breaking down lactose -- a natural sugar in dairy products -- that can cause digestive problems and smelly gas.
Artificial sweeteners and sugar alcohols. Your body doesn't digest these well, and they end up fermenting in the gut -- which can lead to foul-smelling farts.
Broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables contain a sulfur compound that can make gas smell like rotten eggs. (Photo credit: iStock/Getty Images)
Medications that cause smelly gas
Antibiotics affect the bacteria in your gut and cause digestive problems. A bacterial imbalance can lead to bad-smelling gas.
Other medications that may cause smelly farts are:
Constipation and smelly gas
If poop sits in your digestive tract because your constipated, that gives the bacteria in your gut more time to react with it and release smelly gasses.
Smelly gas doesn't usually require medical treatment. There are some easy things you can do on your own to try to control your gas:
Eating habits
Slow down when you eat. Chewing quickly and swallowing fast will cause more gas to be produced. Eating and chewing slowly reduces your air intake and can alleviate your gas.
Smaller portions are also important for reducing foul-smelling gas. When you eat smaller amounts of food, you make less gas during digestion. Having smaller portions will help your digestive tract work better and soothe your stomach pains connected to your foul-smelling gas.
Diet
Take note of what you eat and how it makes you feel. It might be good to remove certain foods from your diet and gradually reintroduce them to determine if you have an intolerance. You should start a journal while doing this to determine what certain foods do to your digestive tract. You may find that even if you don't have an intolerance, some foods might not settle correctly in your stomach, causing foul-smelling gas. Avoid or limit the foods and drinks that cause your bad-smelling gas.
Medications
Taking medications with enzymes like galactosidase (lactase) and alpha-galactosidase (Beano) helps reduce gas and bloating.
If you do not find relief by trying these remedies, it is time to make an appointment with your doctor. They will be able to determine the cause and provide a treatment plan for you to follow.
Contact your doctor if you're passing an increased amount of gas — more than 20 to 30 times per day — and you experience the following as it may be a sign of a more serious issue:
Normal gas varies in smell from person to person. Foul-smelling gas can occur for many reasons, but sometimes it can indicate serious issues. Talk to your doctor if you have consistently foul-smelling gas accompanied by the following symptoms:
Everyone has gas, and sometimes bad-smelling gas. Foods and medications are the most common things that give gas a bad smell. Usually, you can stop it by identifying the source and avoiding or limiting it.
Why does my gas smell like rotten eggs?
The rotten egg smell is due to hydrogen sulfide, a sulfur-containing gas made when your gut bacteria break down foods containing sulfur like broccoli, meat, and dairy.
What can I eat to stop smelly gas?
No foods will stop smelly gas, but avoiding the foods that cause it for you will help.
Do probiotics help with smelly gas?
Probiotics might help. They introduce "good" bacteria into your gut, which can improve digestion and reduce smelly gas.
Causes Of Bad Smell In Freezer And How You Can Resolve It
Most people would expect a freezer can keep perishable food fresh and safe from spoilage for many months. Unfortunately, this is not always the case.
Have you ever noticed a funky smell in your freezer? Where does it come from and what can be done to fix the problem?
Hardy microbes and pungent chemicals
There are several causes for bad smells coming from your freezer. Typically, the culprits are microbes - bacteria, yeasts and moulds.
Although a freezer dramatically slows down the growth of most common spoilage microbes, some can still thrive if the temperature rises above -18 (the recommended freezer temperature). This can happen if there is a power outage for more than a few hours, or if you put something hot straight in the freezer.
Food spills and open containers provide an opportunity for microbes to get to work. It's also worth noting that many microbes will survive freezing and start growing again once conditions are favourable - for example, if you remove the food, partially thaw it, and return it to the freezer.
Two things happen when food breaks down. First, as microbes start to grow, several pungent chemicals are produced. Second, the fats and flavours that are part of the food itself can and will be released.
These are generally referred to as volatile organic compounds (VOCs). They are the pleasant aromas that we sense when we eat, but VOCs can also be produced by bacteria.
For example, many of us would be familiar with the smells that come from fermentation - a microbial process. When fermenting a food, we intentionally contaminate it with microbes of known characteristics, or provide conditions that favour the growth of desirable microbes and subsequent production of aromatic compounds. By contrast, uncontrolled food spoilage is problematic, especially when the contaminating microbes can cause disease.
Freezing changes the food
It is not only microbial growth that can lead to undesirable odours. There's a suite of chemical processes happening in the freezer, too.
Freezing causes physical changes to foods, often enhancing their breakdown. Many of us would be familiar with "freezer burn" on meats and other foods, as well as ice crystals on frozen food.
This phenomenon is called "salt rejection". Depending on how rapidly something is frozen, salts can sometimes be concentrated, as pure water freezes at a higher temperature than water with things dissolved in it - like sugars and salts. On a large scale, this happens to icebergs in the ocean. As the sea water freezes, salt is removed. Thus, the iceberg is composed of fresh water, and the surrounding sea water becomes a saltier and denser brine.
In a similar way, as water in food freezes, organic molecules are concentrated and expelled. If these are volatile, they move about the freezer and stick to other things. Where they end up depends on what else is around.
Some of the volatiles like water. We call them "hydrophilic" or water loving; those are the ones that will make your food taste bad. Other are more water-hating or "hydrophobic" and they stick to things like silicone ice cube trays, making them go smelly.
Domestic freezers are commonly attached to a refrigerator, and this provides another opportunity for smells to move through the systems. The two units share a single cooling source and airflow channel. If your fridge has foul odours from the food inside (natural or after microbial spoilage), it is very likely they will migrate to your freezer.
Help, my freezer smells!
There are some simple steps you can take to stop your freezer from smelling. First, try to prevent odours from developing in the first place by covering the food. If you place food in an airtight container (glass is best), it will dramatically slow the release of any aromatic compounds produced by bacteria or the food itself. Covered food is also less likely to absorb smells and flavours from other foods around it.
If the smells have already developed, you can eliminate them by following a few simple steps, including a thorough clean.
Remove all items from the freezer and inspect the foods for any spoilage, freezer burn or unpleasant odours.
Discard anything that has developed ice crystals and store the rest in a cooler box while attending to the freezer itself. You should also inspect the fridge and discard any bad-smelling foods.
Once you have removed all items, take out the shelves and clean up spills or crumbs. Wipe down all surfaces using warm soapy water or a mix of two tablespoons of baking soda with warm water. Wash all the shelves and ice compartments and let them dry completely.
If the smells are not removed with these simple cleaning steps, the freezer may require a deep clean, which involves turning off the unit and letting it "breathe" for a few days.
Placing some baking soda inside the freezer before adding food can help to absorb any residual odours. For serious smells where crevices or insulation are contaminated, you may need a service technician.
In short, even though we think freezers keep things "fresh", microbes can still proliferate in there. Make sure to clean your freezer now and then to keep your food safe and healthy.
Open For Discussion: Can Smells Harm You
Can smells be bad for you? Most of us recall situations where a pungent odor—say, from a sewer, trash sitting outside, or a dirty public bathroom with a strong odor of urine—made us want to run away. "Run for your life!" you may have said to yourself. Other times, the air in a friend's house living room was so stuffy you had difficulty breathing, or the air in your classroom smelled like dirty socks, and there were no windows to let fresh air in. Were you going to get sick?
How Smells WorkFirst, let's see how we smell things. Smell is due to molecules of a particular substance that travel into your nose. These odor molecules contact a tissue called the olfactory epithelium (Fig. 1), which contains olfactory receptor cells that lock onto these odor molecules. This generates electrical signals that are relayed to clusters of nerve cells called glomeruli. Then, specialized nerve cells called mitral cells send these signals to regions of the brain that will combine these signals so we can recognize the smell (or are intrigued by it).
Smell does not usually contain bacteria, which carry disease and are much larger than the gaseous molecules that make up a smell. So the odor itself cannot make you sick. But some gaseous compounds can have other effects on your health by causing shortness of breath, headaches, eye irritation, or, if large amounts are inhaled, even death.
Hydrogen sulfideOne of the most foul-smelling substances is hydrogen sulfide (H2S), which has a characteristic rotten-egg odor. This gas is produced by the anaerobic (oxygen-free) breakdown of organic matter by bacteria; it is a common component of "sewer gas." But this gas does not cause disease; rather, when molecules of this substance enter your nose, they can attack the central nervous system. Exposure to even small amounts can be fatal.
The health effects of hydrogen sulfide depend on the amount inhaled and for how long. Exposure to low concentrations (less than 50 parts per million (ppm)) can produce irritation of the nose and throat and lead to loss of appetite and headache. Higher concentrations (50–150 ppm) can cause eye irritation, coughing, and loss of smell. If the amount of inhaled hydrogen sulfide is larger than 200 ppm, damage to the eyes can occur, along with accumulation of fluid in the lungs. Beyond 700 ppm, most people lose consciousness, and some die.
The bottom line…Your sense of smell often alerts you to potential danger. Bad smells can serve as a warning that something is amiss. If it smells bad, it is probably bad for you. More often than not, the nose knows.
What's that smell?Thinking of a recent or past experience with a bad smell, what chemicals do you think caused that bad smell? Do you think they were harmful? How would you find out?
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