It may be a source of amusement for small children, but breaking wind is an entirely normal process which each of us does around 15 to 20 times a day.
But there are times when it’s a sign something else is going on.
For instance, smelly or excessive flatulence may be related to a problem with your diet or can be a sign of underlying health problems.
The same goes for burping, another normal part of everyday life but which for many people can become a problem.
Despite the embarrassment both cause, neither flatulence nor burping are in themselves bad things.
Breaking wind is an entirely normal process which each of us does around 15 to 20 times a day
In the case of flatulence especially, this is often a sign of a healthy gut — it means your gut bacteria are busy at work breaking down foodstuffs such as fibre that cannot be broken down elsewhere in the digestive tract, and a by-product of that process is wind (largely formed of carbon dioxide, hydrogen and methane).
On average we produce 500 to 2,000 ml of wind a day — and most of this is released without you even realising it.
In fact, while a lot of flatulence is released within an hour of eating, a significant amount is emitted while you’re asleep as the anal sphincter muscle, which opens to release gas, relaxes.
Even the gas that’s released during the day shouldn’t be a big deal as 99 per cent of what you produce doesn’t smell.
That’s worth remembering if you’re the type of person who tries to hold wind in when in company.
I’m no etiquette expert, but as a scientist who has spent the majority of her career investigating how the gut works, I can say that while repeatedly holding it in won’t do any major damage, it can make you bloated and lead to abdominal pain as the gas presses on the gut wall.
Obviously, there are occasions when breaking wind can make you feel horribly self-conscious — especially if it’s excessively smelly.
But why do some people have more malodorous wind?
It can just be down to the make-up of your gut microbiome (the community of microbes that live in your gut) — some people just have more of the types of gut bacteria that produce smelly gas.
What you eat can also play a part. One of the most common culprits of pungent wind is eating too much meat: that’s due to a compound called sulphur — found in especially high levels in red meat — which is broken down by your gut bacteria into a gas, hydrogen sulphide, that smells like rotten eggs.
Sulphur is also found in other meats and fish, eggs, cabbage, broccoli, brussels sprouts and cauliflower.
But it’s normally red meat that’s the culprit — as this is what we tend to eat too much of, rather than vegetables. So if your wind is smelly you might want to cut back on your red meat consumption.
The last thing I want anyone to do is to cut back on veg such as broccoli, but if you are concerned about your wind and you have a special event coming up, then you could avoid sulphur-rich foods for the 24-48 hours beforehand (in a study I was involved in, published in the journal Gut in 2021, we gave volunteers muffins with blue food dye and found that on average it takes just under 29 hours for food to pass out of the system).
If you are new to beans I always recommend to start small with a tablespoon of beans every other day
But what, you may be wondering, about beans — the basis of many a fart joke?
While eating more beans, of any type, may initially increase your wind, in the longer term it usually gets better.
Beans are rich in fibre, which is gut bacteria’s favourite food — and with around 7g in half a tin, weight for weight beans provide more fibre than fruit and veg. Most of us don’t eat anywhere near the 30g of fibre we need a day.
A lack of fibre can lead to an unhealthy gut microbiome — in other words, the gut bacteria is less diverse, and with more ‘bad’ ones — and this can also cause more wind and bloating.
So, ironically, a poor diet low in fibre may lead to more wind — not less.
Eating more fibre will also help with constipation, which causes smelly flatulence as food gets fermented for longer and traps gas. Just make sure to drink plenty of water too, as fibre can make constipation worse if you’re dehydrated.
When you start adding more fibre to your diet, be ready for a few days of extra wind, as when you start eating more fibre it’s like throwing your gut bacteria a birthday party — they joyfully binge on the fibre and produce a lot of gas.
If you are new to beans I always recommend to start small with, for instance, a tablespoon of beans every other day and slowly increase across the weeks up to half a can or more most days.
If you keep that intake up, the bacteria don’t get so over excited by the presence of fibre and they adapt. A 2004 study in the journal Gut found that when people increased the amount of fibre in their diet, they produced the same amount of wind but as larger amounts less often.
Another consideration for those experiencing excess flatulence is whether it occurs after eating dairy foods such as milk, yoghurt or butter, as here it could be linked to lactose intolerance.
This results from not having enough of the enzyme lactase needed to break down lactose, the sugar in milk.
As a result it travels, undigested, through the gut where it is met by the bacteria that ferment it — resulting in a lot of gas. It can also lead to diarrhoea, constipation and nausea.
If you suspect this is the case you can try cutting down on dairy foods for a while to see if your symptoms improve.
You won’t necessarily have to cut out dairy completely — usually the amount in a glass of milk can be tolerated each day, but this can vary.
Or you can choose lower lactose options such as kefir or hard cheeses.
You can also get lactase drops from the chemist (which you add to milk, for example) to help break down the lactose.
Flatulence can also be a problem for people with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), the name for a collection of gut symptoms including constipation or loose bowels.
This can cause gut spasms and may lead to a painful build-up of wind.
In this case, peppermint oil capsules could be beneficial, as the menthol they contain helps relax the muscles of your gut and so release any wind. You can get the capsules from a pharmacy (though check with the pharmacist, as it’s not recommended when pregnant, or if you have liver disease or gallstones).
Peppermint tea can also be soothing, although won’t contain as much menthol.
When it comes to burping — and to some extent flatulence — as well as what you eat, it’s good to consider how you eat.
If you eat very quickly the chances are that you’re swallowing large quantities of air with that food, and while often that will re-emerge as burps, some will carry through the system and be expelled as wind.
A major contributor to burps especially is fizzy drinks, which includes beer. That’s because the bubbles — small orbs of carbon dioxide — gradually build up in the stomach, which then quickly expels them in a burp when it becomes too overloaded. So sip it slowly and if you enjoy a pint of beer opt for the darker brews which tend to be less carbonated.
And maybe rethink that chewing gum habit! Sugar-free gum provides a double whammy of gas as not only do you swallow air as you chew it, it contains sweeteners, including xylitol, that can contribute to flatulence in some people, as it goes to the lower intestine undigested and is then fermented by the gut bacteria.
Whether its flatulence or burping that’s bothering you, one simple way to ease both is to go for a walk in the 30 minutes after a meal as this can help gently disperse any painful build-up of gas and bloating.
As they are fond of saying in Scotland, where I grew up, ‘wherever you be, let your wind blow free’.
