How To Prevent Gas Please Rea
HOW TO PREVENT GAS
This can be done by watching WHAT you eat and HOW you eat it. While most belching is due to swallowing air, gas passed from the rectum is produced in the bowel. There’s no need to fret about passing gas–occasionally everyone does it. Though it can sometimes be an acute social embarrassment, it’s not a symptom of bowel cancer or other serious disease.
The offending gases, including hydrogen, methane, and carbon dioxide, are produced when bacteria normally present in the large intestine cause incompletely digested carbohydrates to ferment. So the only real way to cut down on gas is to cut down on foods that contain these ingestible carbohydrate residues, particularly legumes like beans and lentils. Intestinal gas is also common in people who can’t tolerate the lactose in milk and some dairy products. If you are bothered by excess gas, simply cut down on, or avoid, the foods that intensify the problem for you.
Here are some specific tips:
Soak beans before cooking to remove some of the carbohydrates that cause gas. You must discard the soaking water and then boil the beans in fresh water.
Chew foods thoroughly. If you gulp it, you swallow harder-to-digest lumps that remain longer in the intestine where their residue may ferment. Some people gulp their food down with their drinks and end up swallowing a lot of air. Keep your food and drinking separate!
Avoid constipation, which slows down the passage of food through the gastrointestinal tract, thereby stepping up fermentation. Eat high-fiber foods and drink plenty of fluids.
If you have problems digesting lactose, avoid milk. Stick to cheese, yogurt, and special enzyme-treated milk (or acidophilus milk).
Don’t expect relief from over the counter remedies. Antifoaming agents (such as simethicone in Mylicon 80) found in some “antacid-antigas” preparations, merely change large gas bubbles into smaller ones–hardly a remedy for flatulence. Bulk-forming laxatives (Metamucil, PerDiem, etc.) can actually promote the kind of fermented residues that cause the problem in the first place. As for products containing “activated charcoal,” there’s little or no evidence that they can actually absorb gas in humans, as claimed. They can, however, interfere with the absorption of birth control pills and other medicines.
Avoid carbonated beverages which add to the gas problem (beer, sparkling water, sodas, etc.).
[from the University of California, Berkeley, Wellness Letter, April, 1989]