Pooh and Your Health

[one...two...tree 2,762]

By Leslie Crawford

Mar. 12, 2008 | I looked, all right? This morning, I took a long and unflinching gaze. How do I say this without sounding boastful? There in the bowl was a real beauty, my reward for yesterday's hearty oatmeal breakfast and black bean and rice dinner. It was the kind of (how do we settle on a comfortable euphemism?) ejecta that would make Mom proud.

I consulted "What's Your Poo Telling You?" my handy field guide to human stools, and discovered that mine had an ideal shape, sinking nicely to the bottom of the bowl. Because of its textbook-perfect hue -- no alarming green, red or yellowish tinge proving my bile is diseased -- I can be reassured that I and my hardworking colon are healthy. I can proudly say I'm an excretion achiever!

I am hardly alone in poring over "What's Your Poo Telling You?" Not only does poo have a lot to tell you, but lately scores of Americans seem anxious to listen. Last spring, Chronicle Books printed 20,000 copies of the little brown book, mostly to be sold as a novelty in Urban Outfitters. Today it has sold more than 225,000 in big-box bookstores nationwide. Apparently its success is proof that at long last poo has come out of the water closet.

Indeed, what the book's coauthors, Josh Richman and Anish Sheth, M.D., say was once regarded as "malodorous waste" can now be openly regarded for what it is: a miracle of creation, a crystal ball of intestinal health, a feng shui of the derrière. "Like a snowflake, each poo has a wondrous uniqueness," they write. They deconstruct specimens such as the "log jam," "a cruel reminder of your inability to perform," and "hanging chads," "stubborn pieces of ####### that cling."

And for those who aspire to leave behind a shameful history of faulty stools? "The ideal poo is a pillowy soft, singular bolus of stool that exits the body with minimal effort," says Sheth. And that paragon of poo is achieved by consuming plenty of fruits, vegetables and fiber superstars: beans, peas, seeds and nuts.

But wait, there's more on the fecal front. Author Danielle Svetcov is set to publish "The 'Regular' Gourmet Everyday: Sumptuous Recipes for the Gastro-intestinally Challenged." Tens of thousands of Americans are signing onto the Cleanse diet, a sort of spiritual-cum-vegan Roto-Rooter for the intestines. "Functional foods" like Activia yogurt aren't selling by the cases because they are low-fat. That's so 20th century. They are being hyped for how they "maintain digestive health." Cutting-edge Japanese toilets can read your droppings for dietary deficiencies. But there's a far more convincing sign that poo has hit the big time.

Much as they did with eating disorders and sex obsessions, viewers of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" are being invited to stop withholding about this most intimate and private act. Encouraged by the charismatic Dr. Mehmet Oz, a cardiovascular surgeon who appears regularly on the show, we are being told to look before we flush, to study what we've produced as a talisman of health. When it comes to diet, we need to make "number two" our "number one priority."

On "Oprah," women are pouring out their troubles on the toilet. Susan talks freely about her constipation. Maureen, a mother of four, lets loose entirely. "My hemorrhoids feel so bad that it's like grapes hanging out of my rear," she confesses. "Sometimes they hurt so bad, I can't get out of bed for two days."

Clearly, says Oz, Maureen and Susan, like millions of white-flour-addicted Americans, aren't listening to what their stools are telling them. (Really, who knew the intestinal tract was so chatty?) "'Help! Help!' Their big colon is saying, 'I need something from you,'" says Oz. If Maureen and Susan stop eating their children's leftover Happy Meals and start eating more lima beans, oh, the satisfaction, wastewise, they would realize.

"You want to hear what the stool, the poop, sounds like when it hits the water," Oz instructs. "If it sounds like a bombardier, you know, 'plop, plop, plop,' that's not right because it means you're constipated. It means the food is too hard by the time it comes out. It should hit the water like a diver from Acapulco hits the water." Oz makes a "swoosh" sound -- the sound of an Olympian excrement champion.

So why poo, and why now? Well, when it comes to the success of "What's Your Poo Telling You?" there are two good reasons that two men in their 30s, who were potty-trained with the children's scatological classic "Everyone Poops," would grow up to write an adult version that speaks to their generation. No. 1, now that baby boomers are decidedly middle-aged, they're becoming ever more aware of physiological changes that make poop an important topic of conversation. No. 2, we're experiencing a baby boomer boomlet, with millions of new parents focusing, as new parents will, on their wee ones' output.

Moreover, this is the natural progression of a nation obsessed, and browbeaten, about eating healthy. So we've moved from mouth southward, from fretting over what goes in our mouth to what comes out the other end.

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/03/12/poo/

[almaty 19]

mine to0ld me to quit eating so much peanuts...looked like a Payday bar

[one...two...tree 2,762]

mine to0ld me to quit eating so much peanuts...looked like a Payday bar

[almaty 19]

hey brother...give my best to my sis jinky.////

[one...two...tree 2,762]

hey brother...give my best to my sis jinky.////

Thanks brother. Today just might be the day.

[MissStacey 1]

There is a British show I like watching called "you are what you eat" She always analyzes peoples poo.

[AnewKINDofFEELIN 0]

You should see what eating only hummous for a day will do to it.

[Sister Fracas 5]

dang, I thought this was a thread about Winnie the Pooh...

[Jenn! 918]

Poo, not Pooh! Pooh's a bear and I couldn't figure out what he could possibly have to do with my health.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

You should see what eating only hummous for a day will do to it.

I've turned mine a blue from eating too many blueberries before.

[Miranda&James 8]

You should see what eating only hummous for a day will do to it.

I've turned mine a blue from eating too many blueberries before.

Red velvet cake. I thought I was dying until I connect the dots.

[AnewKINDofFEELIN 0]

You should see what eating only hummous for a day will do to it.

I've turned mine a blue from eating too many blueberries before.

Green apple snowcone

On a side note, has anyone else ever taken AZO? It turns your urine orange, and not "kinda" orange. You look like your pissing some new Mountain Dew product. They actually warn to be careful, because it can stain clothing.

[Miranda&James 8]

You should see what eating only hummous for a day will do to it.

I've turned mine a blue from eating too many blueberries before.

Green apple snowcone

On a side note, has anyone else ever taken AZO? It turns your urine orange, and not "kinda" orange. You look like your pissing some new Mountain Dew product. They actually warn to be careful, because it can stain clothing.

Yes I have, and yes it can. It can stain the toilet too (there is an embarrassing story about trying not to pee too much at a friends house that goes along with that - oops, I dyed your toilet orange ).

[MoonlitCherri 0]

I thought I'd find tigger in here.

[Sister Fracas 5]

I thought I'd find tigger in here.

here ya go...