• Question: Do baked beans actually make you break wind, if so, why??

    Asked by lollypop to Andrew on 15 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Andrew Maynard

      Andrew Maynard answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      Hi lollypop,

      This is getting personal 🙂

      I actually didn’t know the answer to this so had to look it up – and it’s pretty interesting (I thought).

      Apparently beans contain long sugar molecules that aren’t broken down in the small intestine. Which means that they arrive intact in your large intestine (or mine), which is swarming with bacteria just waiting to finish off any undigested food. These bacterial fall on the large sugar molecules with relish, and in the process of digesting them, release gas. This has to go somewhere, and quite sensibly it takes the shortest route between your large intestine and the outside – resulting in “wind.”

Comments

  • Photo: lollypop

    lollypop commented on :

    ooh right, thank you (:

  • andrewleitch commented on :

    The article below is from the British medical journal (an excellent source of fart research)
    “It all started with an enquiry from a nurse,” Dr Karl Kruszelnicki told listeners to his science phone­in show on the Triple J radio station in Brisbane. “She wanted to know whether she was contaminating the operating theatre she worked in by quietly farting in the sterile environment during operations, and I realised that I didn’t know. But I was determined to find out.” Dr Kruszelnicki then described the method by which he had established whether human flatus was germ­laden, or merely malodorous. “I contacted Luke Tennent, a microbiologist in Canberra, and together we devised an experiment. He asked a colleague to break wind directly onto two Petri dishes from a distance of 5 centimetres, first fully clothed, then with his trousers
    down. Then he observed what happened. Overnight, the second Petri dish sprouted visible lumps of two types of bacteria that are usually found only in the gut and on the skin. But the flatus which had passed through clothing caused no bacteria to sprout, which suggests that clothing acts as a filter. “Our deduction is that the enteric zone in the second Petri dish was caused by the flatus itself, and the splatter ring around that
    was caused by the sheer velocity of the fart, which blew skin bacteria from the cheeks and blasted it onto the dish. It seems, therefore, that flatus can cause infection if the emitter is naked, but not if he or she is clothed. But the results of the experiment should not be considered alarming, because neither type of bacterium is harmful. In fact, they’re similar to the `friendly’ bacteria found in yoghurt. “Our final conclusion? Don’t fart naked near food. All right, it’s not rocket science. But then again, maybe it is?”
    Reprinted from the Canberra Times, 17 July 2001; spotter,
    Michael Doyle.
    Submitted by Simon Chapman department of public health and