Posted on 11/23/2017 6:23:54 PM PST by blam
If you’ve ever noticed a strange, not-entirely-pleasant scent coming from your urine after you eat asparagus, you’re definitely not alone.
Distinguished thinkers as varied as Scottish mathematician and physician John Arbuthnot (who wrote in a 1731 book that “asparagus…affects the urine with a foetid smell”) and Marcel Proust (who wrote how the vegetable “transforms my chamber-pot into a flask of perfume”) have commented on the phenomenon.
Even Benjamin Franklin took note, stating in a 1781 letter to the Royal Academy of Brussels that “A few Stems of Asparagus eaten, shall give our Urine a disagreable Odour” (he was trying to convince the academy to “To discover some Drug…that shall render the natural Discharges of Wind from our Bodies, not only inoffensive, but agreable as Perfumes”—a goal that, alas, modern science has still not achieved).
But modern science has, at least, shed some light on why this one particular vegetable has such an unusual and potent impact on the scent of urine. Scientists tell us that the asparagus-urine link all comes down to one chemical: asparagusic acid.
Asparagusic acid, as the name implies, is (to our knowledge) only found in asparagus. When our bodies digest the vegetable, they break down this chemical into a group of related sulfur-containing compounds with long, complicated names (including dimethyl sulfide, dimethyl disulfide, dimethyl sulfoxide and dimethyl sulfone). As with many other substances that include sulfur—such as garlic, skunk spray and odorized natural gas—these sulfur-containing molecules convey a powerful, typically unpleasant scent.
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at smithsonianmag.com ...
I remembered this article from a while back.
However, I have ceased subscribing to Smithsonian Magazine, see here:
Why I Am Cancelling Two Subscriptions to Smithsonian (Vanity)
We had some spicy pickled asparagus recently that was delicious.
Where to start...
Geeshh...
I need a New Hobby!
I knew there was a good reason to avoid the foul tasting crap.
Now I can sleep, made comfortable with this new knowledge.
It’s delicious as a raw snack!
Not everyone suffers from this problem. It is genetic. I learned this in some college class a long time ago. (We took our notes in cuneiform). I was surprised when I first learned about it, since I don’t have this problem. I imagine that those who do are surprised that it isn’t universal.
Cilantro tastes ‘soapy’ to me, but not to my wife. That too is genetic.
My doctor says it’s good for you. Cleans you out.
This is the one food that will make me violently ill if I eat it. I cannot stomach it at all.
What you’re saying is either urine or you’re out.
Wonder if it might help a uti?
Can you make a “U” with your tongue?
I thought asparagus made everything smell, and smell, and smell . . . . .
Thomas it 200 years and they still have not found a cure for pooping.
Any effect it has on my urine can only improve the ambience of the men's room at work.
Now this....this is real science!
This is useful!
Scientists smelling pee.
Go to your local university and relieve yourself, but don’t flush.
Let them hypothesize about what you’ve been eating.
That’ll make those old goat professors quit chasing the coeds for a few minutes.
A Devil of a vegetable....
It takes me about 15 minutes or less.
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