Serious fart talk
The embryo for this post started at the dinner table the other day. Suddenly in the middle of a bite, I asked Mr Lifecruiser what we should have for night meal. He just shaked his head and said: “An outsider would have thought that you were a maniac.. start to talk about that in the middle of the dinner! You should be full and not thinking of food already again”. Well, an outsider won’t know that I always have to have something before I go to bed, otherwise I will be too hungry in the middle of the night and can’t sleep.
Then I remembered that it was a lot of eggs in our dinner and said: “You know, it’s a lot of eggs in this food, so there will be a lot of serious farting this evening.” That didn’t convince him about me being normal either, but hey, he should be used to it by now, after all he is married to me. At least I didn’t fart or pick my or his nose at the dinner table….
We are generally rather outspoken about everything here in Sweden, but maybe not so far as to this point of disgusting things for most of the people. And certainly not at the dinner table. Normally I don’t speak like this when we’re with other people - except Miss Ass. Lifecruiser who is as crazy as we are.
Anyway, that started a little wondering. Why does it smell like rotten eggs when farting after eating fresh eggs? If you eat other things, it doesn’t smell that way even if you do get gases from it. What is it in eggs that makes it smell so bad when it comes out? We started to joke about it, saying that “Oh, it must be because the eggs have passed two butts, the hens and ours…” and stuff like that.
But seriously, why does it smell, what is that smell?
I began to search for the answer and found out that Hydrogen Sulphide is what makes the smell of rotten eggs and it’s even produced by the bacteria in our stomach when we’ve eaten fresh eggs.
Flammable facts about flatulence:
The average human releases 0.5 to 1.5 litres (1 to 3 U.S. pints) of flatus in 12 to 25 episodes throughout the day. The primary constituents of flatulence are the non-odorous gases, in descending order of concentration, nitrogen (ingested), oxygen (ingested), methane (produced by anaerobic microbes), carbon dioxide (produced by aerobic microbes or ingested), and hydrogen (produced by some microbes and consumed by others). Odors result from trace amounts of other components (often sulphur containing, see below).
Nitrogen is the primary gas released. Methane and hydrogen, lesser components, are flammable, and so flatulence is susceptible to catching fire. Gas released mostly has a foul odor which mainly results from low molecular weight fatty acids such as butyric acid (rancid butter smell) and reduced sulfur compounds such as hydrogen sulfide (rotten egg smell) and carbonyl sulfide that are the result of protein breakdown.
Source: Wikipedia
You see, there is sience in everything!
