I fart too much

I recently noticed that I fart too much, especially after eating any kind of meal prepared with beans. Kindly advise me on what to do about this.

Innocent (by SMS)

Farting (flatulence) is passing gas from the digestive system out of the back passage. It’s a normal process and something everyone experiences regularly. There are things you can do if you fart a lot or your farts are smelly. When you swallow food, water or saliva, you also swallow small amounts of air. This collects in the digestive system. The body needs to get rid of the build-up by farting or burping. Gases can also build up when you digest food.

Excessive farting can be caused by: swallowing more air than usual, eating foods that are difficult to digest, conditions affecting the digestive system like indigestion or irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and some medicines like non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), statins and some laxatives.

To reduce the incidence of farting, it is important to chew food slowly with your mouth closed, eat smaller meals, more often, drink slowly, exercise regularly to improve digestion, eat foods that are easy to digest like rice, bananas, citrus fruits and potatoes. It is equally important to avoid chewing gum, smoke or suck on pen tops or hard sweets to avoid swallowing excess air, wearing loose-fitting dentures, drinking lots of fizzy drinks and hot drinks, too much beer, wine or fruit juice as well as consuming lots of foods that are difficult to digest and cause farting like beans, cabbage and lentils.

In addition, do not eat lots of foods containing sorbitol (a sweetener) and fructose (a sugar) as these can cause farting. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to prevent or minimize gas caused by beans. For example, some studies show that soaking and cooking beans before eating them can significantly decrease their production of gas.

Furthermore, some people discovered that adding ‘gari’ to the beans and drinking plenty of water will reduce the gas production.

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