DARE TO ASK: A little bit of bathroom, um, humor

By PHILLIP MILANO, The Times-Union

Question

So my girlfriend and I were wondering: Why do certain foods like Honey Smacks and asparagus make your urine smell funny?

Tom, Jacksonville

Replies

An odoriferous compound is formed as a derivative during the breakdown of amino acids that occur in asparagus.

Karen J., Ponte Vedra Beach

Taking Mucinex for several days due to a cold made my urine smell very much like mown grass.

Ann, Kansas City, Mo.

When my son was a toddler he opened one of those "child-proof" bottles and ate the entire bottle of Flintstones chewable vitamins with iron. He peed bright orange for over a week.

Danny, 42, Carbon Hill, Ala.

Asparagus is high in purines, which raise the level of uric acid in the urine, causing the distinctive smell. Since I don't eat junk food, I don't know what ingredient in Honey Smacks causes a funny smell.

Jane, 65, St. Simons Island, Ga.

Expert says

Googling "urine smelly asparagus" turned up 35,300 hits. There may be something to this.

Turns out the strong odor can spring forth only 15 minutes after chomping down on a mere five or six spears of the stuff, according to well-known dietitian Joanne Larsen, who runs Dietitian.com.

She says the matter has been looked into extensively by the Michigan Asparagus Advisory Board (apparently folks in the upper Midwest require a special panel to advise them about Eurasian plants that are members of the lily family).

The board found first that asparagus is just chock full of the compound methylmercaptan, which contains sulfur - thus the aroma in urine.

But wait! Then the board said other studies found the compounds might actually be methylthioacrylate and methyl-thiopropionate. It's a huge controversy!

Whatever it is, it all happens during the lil' green vegetable's happy slide down our digestive tract.

Urine can also smell fruity or sweet, Larsen said - sometimes a sign of undiagnosed or out-of-control diabetes. In fact, dining on heaps of Honey Smacks might cause a diabetic's urine to smell sweet, because of the large amount of additional sugars and carbs being added to the system.

What about different urine colors? Hmmm, not much space left here. Let's color-code things:

Deep red: You're into beets and blackberries.

Pink: Possibly blood in the urine. See a doc.

Yellow or orange: Caused by vitamin C, antibiotics or Coumadin, a blood thinner.

Green or blue: You eat lots of foods with artificial colors.

Straw-colored or clear: You're doin' good and drinking the right amount of water.

"Overall, what ends up in your urine, since it's a waste product from the body, is generally indicative of something you ate in the last four to six hours," Larsen said.

That's it, we're done. Gotta go.

Phillip Milano, author of I Can't Believe You Asked That! (Perigee), moderates cross-cultural dialogue at Y? The National Forum on People's Differences. Visit www.yforum.com to submit questions and answers, or mail to Phillip Milano, c/o The Florida Times-Union, P.O. Box 1949, Jacksonville, FL 32231. Include contact information. For Dare to Ask podcasts, go to Jacksonville.com keyword: milano.