Why Asparagus Makes Your Urine Smell

Smithsonian Magazine ^ | 5-3-2013 | Joseph Stromberg

[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.

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[txhurl]

Well, a case of Tabasco would only be 6”x4”x6”, the smallest bottles are tiny.

[Zeneta]

OK

But, a case of Tabasco a month?

That’s a lot.

I was just looking for some confirmation of an article I had read years ago.

[KJC1]

Had fun just reading through this thread. :)

I love good, fresh asparagus, which to me means the more tender thin stalks. Yes, I can tell I’ve eaten it later lol.

As far as cilantro, I’d never had it until I was in my late teens. I found it absolutely disgusting; it tasted to me like how stink bugs smell (yes I confess I smelled some as a child to confirm they were stink lol). Oddly, within a couple of years, absolute disgust turned to absolute love of cilantro. People who remember my previous comments said, “So now you like the taste of stink bugs?” Ha ha.

I think our tastes change, but yes cilantro is one of the big love/hate ones for sure.

[hanamizu]

I don’t hate cilantro, but since it tastes like soap to me I don’t see the point to adding it to dishes. Luckily, apparently my wife doesn’t smell the asparagus pee smell either, which is good because we’ve had asparagus in our garden for something like 20 years.

[KJC1]

Sounds like the perfect compromise! :)