10 tips to prevent embarrassing flatulence

Excessive gas can be an embarrassing problem and impact your life negatively. With these 10 tips, you can take steps to prevent gas from forming in the first place.

• Flatulence is hardly a "disease." In fact, everyone passes gas from 14 to 23 times a day, though most of the time, it's odourless.
• But that knowledge doesn't make an ill-timed release any less embarrassing.

Gas is produced when bacteria in your colon ferment indigestible carbohydrates in high-fibre foods and fibre supplements.

• Lactose intolerance, gluten intolerance, irritable bowel syndrome, ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease can also cause gas.
• So can antibiotics, some diabetes medications, laxatives, weight-loss drugs, medications to help you stop smoking and gastric bypass surgery.
• Eating foods sweetened with sugar alcohols like sorbitol and mannitol can also cause excess gas.

• passing gas
• sharp abdominal cramps
• bloating

If odoriferous emissions are causing your social life to suffer and anxiety to follow you everywhere, here is some advice that can help:

Beans are good for you, but gas is sometimes the tradeoff. The same applies to cabbage, brussels sprouts, broccoli and asparagus.

• Humans lack an enzyme that digests sugars, so bacteria in the intestines do the work.
• The bacteria emit gas, then you do the same. Gradually increasing the amount of beans in your diet can minimize the result.

Sometimes intestinal gas indicates a food intolerance or digestive condition. Among the most common:

• Lactose intolerance. If you have gas and abdominal pain after eating dairy products, you may lack the enzyme lactase needed to break down sugar in these foods. The solution: lactase supplements, lactase drops to add to milk and lactose-reduced dairy products.
• Glucose intolerance. If your body can't digest gluten, a protein in wheat, you may experience gas, bloating, weight loss and foul-smelling stools. See your doctor for a diagnosis.
• Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). If you emit normal amounts of gas but feel bloated and have bouts of diarrhea or constipation, you may have IBS. Dietary changes, stress reduction and medications may help.

• Draining and rinsing canned beans gets rid of some of the gas-causing raffinose.

If you're cooking dried beans, soak them first. Add 0.5 millilitres (1/8 teaspoon) of baking soda to the soaking water and rinse soaked beans well. Never cook beans in their rinse water.

• Sprinkling a few drops of Beano on your beans or gassy vegetables could significantly reduce the gas after a meal.
• Beano contains an enzyme that breaks down the sugars in beans.

• Other foods — dates, grapes, apples, pears, peaches and plums — contain tough-to-digest sugars that become food for gassy bacteria in your gut.
• Everyone reacts differently, so don't write off a nutritious fruit or veggie without checking first.

• The bubbles in seltzer and soft drinks contain gas, and you swallow them when you sip a carbonated drink. Beer and champagne lovers, that includes you.

• Starchy dishes such as potatoes, pasta and corn produce gas in your large intestine. Rice won't — it's about the only starch completely absorbed in the small intestine, making it a more comfortable choice.

• Many sugar-free and low-carb chewing gums, hard candies, chocolates and cookies, are sweetened with sorbitol and mannitol.
• When bacteria in your intestinal tract break them down, the result can be rumbles and embarrassing emissions.

• Using baking soda or an antacid containing sodium bicarbonate for heartburn and acid indigestion could backfire, loudly.
• Look for another antacid, one that contains calcium carbonate, which neutralizes acid, or ask your doctor about H2 blockers.

• Researchers from India report that adding garlic and ginger to beans while they cook can reduce gas produced when you eat them.