Healthy foods like vegetables, fruit, whole grains, beans and peas have the propensity to cause gas. These healthy, high-fiber foods are necessary for a well-rounded diet; the Harvard School of Public Health promotes a fiber-rich diet to reduce your risk of diabetes, heart disease and constipation. However, some of these healthy foods cause gas because they contain certain types of carbohydrates that are hard for your digestive tract to process.
About Gas
Some types of carbohydrates, namely fiber, starches and sugar, are difficult for you to digest because you lack enough of the specific enzyme needed to break them down. These foods pass from small to large intestine undigested where your body's natural bacteria go to work. The byproducts of this process are hydrogen, carbon dioxide and sometimes methane, gases that are released through your rectum -- and some of them are unpleasantly odoriferous. Gas is extremely common. According to the National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse, or NDDIC, the average person experiences flatulence 14 times every day and produces between 1 and 4 pints of gas.
Vegetables, Fruits and Grains
Healthy foods like high-fiber foods can be major contributors to gas, especially those high in soluble fiber such as oat bran, beans, peas and almost all fruits. Beans also contain raffinose, a complex sugar that's difficult to digest; raffinose is also present in some whole-grain foods and vegetables such as broccoli, asparagus, Brussels sprouts and cabbage. Other difficult-to-digest sugars may include fructose and sorbitol, which are found in onions, artichokes, wheat, pears, apples, peaches and prunes. With the exception of rice, even starchy foods like potatoes and corn can cause gas.
Dairy Foods
Dairy foods like milk, cheese and yogurt are rich in calcium; however, some people have a condition called lactose intolerance. Lacking an enzyme needed to break down lactose, the natural sugar present in dairy foods, the intestine's bacteria must break down the food instead. One of the hallmark symptoms of lactose intolerance is gas, along with abdominal bloating and diarrhea. People with lactose intolerance can only find relief by restricting the amount of dairy food they eat.
Solutions
The Harvard School of Public Health suggests that adult women and men get more than 20 and 30 grams of fiber a day, respectively. The 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans stress the importance of eating more vegetables, fruit, whole-grain foods and low-fat dairy foods -- healthy foods that can cause gas. The problem for most people is that they don't know precisely which foods are responsible for their flatulence. MayoClinic.org states that you might have to tweak your diet a bit. Eliminate suspect foods from your diet and see what results you get. Add the food back into your diet in small amounts until you determine what serving size you can tolerate without experiencing a lot of gas.
References
- Harvard School of Public Health: Fiber-What Should You Eat?
- National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse: Gas in the Digestive Tract; January 2008
- MayoClinic.org: Pass on the Gas: Tips to Reduce Flatulence; November 2009
- MayoClinic.com: Gas and Gas Pains; April 2011
- MayoClinic.com: Lactose Intolerance; February 2010
- Cleveland Clinic: Gas
