Why am I farting so much on a vegetarian or vegan diet?

Some vegetarians or vegans claim that they fart more when they eat a plant-based diet. In most cases, flatulence is not a cause for concern. Often, it is just a nutritional problem that can be easily managed with a few changes.

One of the reasons is food intolerance

Sometimes, a bloated belly can also be the result of real food intolerances. These include fructose intolerance, intestinal fructose malabsorption, lactose intolerance, gluten intolerance, or celiac disease. The boundaries to the pathological are fluid here. It is certainly pathological if other complaints are added, such as abdominal pain and irregularities in bowel movements, especially diarrhea.

Why Do Vegetarians Fart More?

According to Focus, Vegetarians have a problem with their diet. This problem is flatulence. More or less frequent and severe. Vegetarians fart more because of the high fiber content in plant foods. “The indigestible fibers cause increased fermentation during the digestive process. This produces gases. In addition, dietary fibers hinder gas transport in the intestines. Then it comes to the annoying bloating belly, explains Gastroenterologin Birgit Kallinowski from Schwetzingen.

Some vegetarians become accustomed after some time to the fiber-rich food and digestion normalizes. Others never get rid of the flatulence. “That varies from individual to individual. But we don’t know why,” says the digestion expert. “Experience shows that the classics caraway and fennel help. High-dose peppermint oil in capsule form also achieves good results. It relaxes the intestine.” Birgit Kallinowski, on the other hand, doesn’t think much of the popular defoamers. “The effect of the over-the-counter preparations is in the placebo range.”

Try a Probiotic

Probiotics are good bacteria. Products containing prebiotics introduce the good bacteria that support our microbiota and digestion. The probiotics we’re interested in produce butyrate and other short-chain fatty acids, which help form the lining of our colons.

This is accomplished by giving the cells that form the intestinal lining energy.

Probiotics don’t stop you from farting, but they do create an environment where less sulfur is produced, which is what gives us that unpleasant fart smell. Not so silently lethal.

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