Want to make stinky farts smell like chocolate or flowers? This French company might have the answer

03/03/2020 / By Ralph Flores

Beyond death and taxes, life still has many certainties. Take farting, for example. While it’s an act many wouldn’t be caught dead doing, it’s actually a normal part of digestion: A person, on average, farts anywhere from five to 15 times a day.

Still, if you’re looking to avoid smelling like rotten eggs or sewage when you let one rip, one French company claims that it can transform the fetor into a range of more pleasant aromas, like chocolate or even roses.

The capsule, called PilulePet, is the brainchild of entrepreneur Christian Poincheval, who came up with the idea after experiencing the horrors of smelly farts firsthand.

“’We were at a table with friends after a copious meal, when we nearly asphyxiated ourselves with our smelly farts,” he wrote on his website. “The gas wasn’t that great for our table [neighbors]. You can disguise the sound of a fart but not the stench. So something had to be done about this.”

Most people would be beside themselves in embarrassment, but Poincheval made the most of this experience — blending a natural mix of aromatics to help make your farts smell like roses. If smelling like roses after passing gas isn’t to your liking, a quick search on the PilulePet website will reveal other scents like ginger, violet, May lily and even chocolate.

While PilulePet is made from vegetable carbon, fennel, blueberries, and other natural ingredients, it has no medicinal or drug-related components. Beyond its ability to make farts smell nice, the tablets also claim to reduce bloating, quench stench and “add a touch of something.”

If you’re eager to smell like a flower garden after breaking wind, taking the pills for over a week will bring about the desired results. There’s even a fart powder for dogs.

But not everyone’s on board to scented farts. According to Anton Emmanuel, a gastroenterologist at University College Hospital in London, the tablets aren’t guaranteed to work for everyone, given that each person has a unique composition of gut microbiota. This makes the idea of creating scented farts highly unlikely.

“I have little doubt that the content of these tablets can produce a different gas profile,’ Anton Emmanuel, a consultant gastroenterologist at University College Hospital in London, told The Verge in 2015.

“The scientific question that remains is whether you can produce enough of that gas to make it smell different,” he told The Verge in 2015. “It may help in some people, but it will be a very modest effect.”

“The majority of the people won’t feel any difference at all.”

Smelly farts and how they’re made

Flatulence, the medical term for farting, is the body’s way of releasing gas from digestion. Farts can be silent and odorless at best, but in some cases, these can be loud and foul-smelling — with some being able to “clear the room.”

Despite the looks you’ll be getting when you let one rip, smelly gas is considered normal. The usual suspects are the foods you eat, but there are cases where a smelly fart can mean an underlying condition. (Related: Junk-food addict turned nutritionist suffered from embarrassing fart attacks before realizing her diet was to blame.)

High-fiber foods take longer to digest, leaving them to ferment in your gut over time. In particular, eating these vegetables can increase the risk of letting out smelly farts:

Broccoli
Bok choy
Asparagus
Cabbage

These foods are also rich in sulfur, which makes your fart smell like rotten eggs.

Smelly farts can also be caused by certain health conditions. Those with food intolerance, for instance, can have foul-smelling gas in reaction to certain foods. For people with problems with their digestive system, like infection or even colon cancer, smelly farts are often accompanied by other symptoms, such as diarrhea or abdominal pain. When flatulence is accompanied by irregular symptoms, seek the advice of your healthcare provider.

There are ways to minimize smelly farts. Eating smaller portions at a slower pace helps you digest your food properly, and drinking water helps waste move along. But if you’re looking for a way to get rid of smelly farts, you’re out of luck. Flatulence is natural and — just like death and taxes — inevitable.

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