Naked Science Forum

Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: MooseHole on 29/03/2004 23:26:02

Title: Do nuts pass through the intestine undigested?
Post by: MooseHole on 29/03/2004 23:26:02

I've heard from many places that faeces has peanuts in it, which I'm guessing is because people don't digest peanuts (so that they can plant peanut plants).

I tried eating nothing but peanuts for 3 days straight, and I didn't find any peanuts at all in my crap.  They were all just dark brown.  Why is that?

Title: Re: Do nuts pass through the intestine undigested?
Post by: MayoFlyFarmer on 30/03/2004 03:06:51

You probably chewed them too well, and/or didn't eat anything along with them to help them pass through your system quickly enough


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Title: Re: Do nuts pass through the intestine undigested?
Post by: Monox D. I-Fly on 30/08/2017 07:03:48

Wait, so when I was a child and my mom asked me to wipe my little brother's ass after he pooped and found something which looked and felt like nuts, they were actual nuts???

Title: Re: Do nuts pass through the intestine undigested?
Post by: chiralSPO on 30/08/2017 14:51:18

The key here is proper chewing. All sorts of foods (mostly plant-derived) can make it through the whole GI tract largely un-digested if not chewed properly (peas, corn, raisins, sesame seeds, and sure, peanuts.)

To access the nutritional value, one must break the food up into small pieces, before swallowing to maximize the surface area available for the digestion and extraction that will happen in the stomach and small intestine. Otherwise, it's just a worthless PITA...

Title: Re: Do nuts pass through the intestine undigested?
Post by: chris on 30/08/2017 16:04:16

Quote from: Monox D. I-Fly on 30/08/2017 07:03:48

Wait, so when I was a child and my mom asked me to wipe my little brother's ass after he pooped and found something which looked and felt like nuts, they were actual nuts???

Peas and carrots syndrome, which also goes by the name "toddler's diarrhoea", can occur in small children who can pass whole chunks of undigested vegetable matter. This is not usually pathological and is a consequence of more rapid transit through the intestine as the bowel matures and "learns" to accommodate more adult foodstuffs. It's also possible that when children swallow they may not chew up their food thoroughly, so more cellulose (fibre)-rich dietary constituents are not broken down fully.

I suspect the same thing had happened with the nuts you describe.

Title: Re: Do nuts pass through the intestine undigested?
Post by: Monox D. I-Fly on 31/08/2017 02:08:59

But sometimes my poop contains nuts even though I didn't eat anything which had nuts since the previous time I pooped. How could it be?

Title: Re: Do nuts pass through the intestine undigested?
Post by: chris on 31/08/2017 09:31:34

Several possibilities to consider:

1) They're not nuts that you are seeing.
2) Intestinal transit time varies from day to day, between individuals and with diet and hydration. It can take a variable amount of time for things to work their way through from top to bottom, so what you are seeing may be the product of many moons (re)past...

Title: Re: Do nuts pass through the intestine undigested?
Post by: Monox D. I-Fly on 09/09/2017 02:56:14

For the first probability, if they're not nuts, what are they? Because not only I saw them, but also touched them, which indeed felt like nuts.