Everything you wanted and didn’t want to know about farts, farting and gas.

Where Do Farts Come From?

The gas we commonly call farts comes from your intestines. The gas can be caused by any number of things, some of of the following common processes are the usual culprits!

Air We Swallow
Gas seeping into our intestines from the blood stream
Chemical Reactions in the intestines
Biological reactions as a result of natural bacteria living in the intestines

What’s in a fart?

Fart gas is not an exact thing, there are numerous variables involved in the “Mix” of the fart. As humans, we are constantly breathing air, the air is broken down into various molecules and the oxygen is absorbed into the blood stream; by the time the air reaches your large instestine, the air is mostly nitrogen. Your stomach also secretes acids and breaks down food into nutrients, a byproduct of which, is commonly carbon dioxide  (stomach gas is usually released in the form of a “Burp”). Bacteria in your instestines, further breaking down food and nutrients can produce any number of gasses including hydrogen and methane.

On average a fart contains the following:

59% nitrogen
21% hydrogen
9% carbon dioxide
7% methane
4% oxygen

Trace Amounts of the following gasses are what give farts their pungent smell:

hydrogen sulphide
methanethiol
dimethyl sulphide