Few things scare the sh*t out of a DUDE faster than looking into the toilet and seeing something besides a basic brown snake.
Red poop. Green poop. Random chunks of food that snuck through your gut untouched. Suddenly you’re inspecting your turds like they came back from a lab.
Before you start drafting your will, think about what you ate recently. Food can easily change the color, consistency, and smell of your poop in some weird ways.
Here are five foods with a reputation for causing toilet bowl plot twists.
1. Corn
You chow down on corn at dinner. The next morning, there’s corn in your poop. WTF happened in there?
Corn kernels have an outer coating made from cellulose, a plant fiber your digestive system has trouble breaking down. Your body can digest the inside of the kernel while leaving some of that yellow exterior intact.
That’s why corn can appear to pass through your body looking suspiciously similar to how it went in. Rest assured, your digestive system didn’t completely clock out for the night.
You absorbed the digestible parts, butt the shell survived the journey.
2. Beets
Beets are responsible for one of the most terrifying false alarms in bathroom history.
After eating enough of them, you may see red or reddish-purple poop. This happens because beets contain betalains, which are pigments that survive digestion and make their grand reappearance in the toilet.
The phenomenon is sometimes called beeturia when it affects your pee, which can also turn pink or red after eating beets.
Unfortunately, there’s no flashing sign above your toilet that says RELAX, DUDE. YOU ATE BEETS.
If red poop persists and you haven't recently eaten something that could explain the color, however, talk to a healthcare professional since red stool can also indicate bleeding.
3. Blue Foods
If you eat something bright blue, you’d logically expect blue poop. Butt your intestines have other plans.
Blue food coloring can mix with the naturally yellowish pigments found in your digestive tract, creating green poop.
Blue frosting, sports drinks, candy, and other artificially colored foods can all leave you staring down at something that looks like it came out of the Incredible Hulk.
The effect is usually temporary. Once the coloring works its way through your system, your regularly scheduled brown programming should resume.
4. Spinach
Your poop can go green without eating anything that looks like it came from Willy Wonka's chemical plant.
Dark leafy greens like spinach are packed with chlorophyll, the stuff that makes plants green. Eat enough spinach and some of that color can carry over into your stool.
There’s another potential cause of green poop: speed.
Bile starts out yellow-green and normally changes color as it moves through your digestive tract. When poop moves through your intestines unusually fast (such as when you have diarrhea) it may stay greener than usual.
So if you recently crushed a massive spinach salad, you probably found your suspect. If you’ve also been sprinting to the toilet every 20 minutes, your bowels may be running the express route.
5. Black Licorice
Black poop can trigger serious bathroom anxiety. Sometimes the explanation is sitting in your snack drawer.
Eating black licorice can temporarily make stool look darker than usual. Other deeply colored foods can occasionally have a similar effect.
There’s an important distinction here: Genuinely black, tarry stool can be a sign of bleeding higher up in your digestive tract. If your poop is black and you can't trace it back to something you ate or a medication known to darken stool, contact a healthcare professional.
If you demolished half a bag of black licorice last night, meanwhile, you've got a pretty obvious lead.
Always Erase the Evidence
Sometimes your gut likes to remind you exactly what you fed it.
Corn can return from the dead. Beets turn your toilet into a crime scene. A blue ICEE can produce poop that looks like it came from a Crayola box.
No matter what lands in the bowl, DUDE Wipes are ready to clean up the aftermath dry TP leaves behind. Whether your poop is red, green, or chunky, remember to wipe until it’s white.
