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Poop Poop Poop, Poop Poop, Poop Poop!

No, that is not a picture of an ice-cream maker. It is a pooper. It is for the stuff that comes out of you when you go to the bathroom. And be glad when it comes out of you regularly and is not stopped up for some reason. Poop poop poop. Who would have thought that we should embrace and be comfortable with the thought, poop.

Okay, yes poop is some nasty smelly stuff that comes out us of. Poop is waste. Because poop is waste we don’t talk about the science of it much. I can’t say that I have had much of a conversation with anyone about poop. Since I became vegan and cleaned out my system and paid attention to how my poop changed I realized that there is a science to it. Yes I will keep this conversation decent cause I don’t want anyone talking about my poop (smile).

We Should Be Pooping Several Times A Day

First thing, if you are not pooping several times a day, or a couple of hours after you eat, there is room for concern. Our bodies need to remove poop from our system in a timely matter and if that is not happening it is likely that something is interfering with the digestive process. Once poop stops moving through the system within the normal timeframe it will start to cake up on our intestinal walls and start to back up our system.

Two things are the likely culprits if you don’t have timely poop movements, a lack of fiber in the diet and a not drinking enough water. First, realize that food enters the body, and the unused parts of it need to exit the body. This is the way the body is made. Food moves through the stomach, small intestine, and large intestine and is broken down into usable parts and the unusable parts must be removed.

This is why there is an opening at the other end of the system to let the waste material, the poop out. So now that we have established why and how we poop, let’s look at the timeframe. It has been established that it takes around 3 days for food to move from the mouth to the rectum to be excreted from the body. So once the eating cycle has started you should have around the same number of poop movements as the number of times you eat a day.

This would be optimal to get the waste out of you in a timely fashion. Now things might get in the way of the making bowel movements in sync with the digestive process. You may be at work, at school, or out on the street somewhere and don’t want to poop there. Your diet also may not have enough you fiber or water in it. You may also not be getting enough exercise or movement, and you may be eating too much dairy. Depression and medicines also interfere with normal bowel movements.

Once we stop letting the poop out when it is ready to come out, it builds up in the rectum headed towards the large intestine. If you eat a diet high in dairy products, low in water and fiber you can develop constipation, so now you have a buildup of hard to move poop. But let us back up a little bit, no pun intended. Say we don’t get enough fiber in our diets. Without fiber to add bulk to the stool, the large intestine has to work harder than normal to push the stool forward.

The pressure from this may cause pouches to form in weak spots along the large intestine. So what’s the big deal with pouches forming in the large intestine and waste backing up? These types of conditions promote disease in the body and this condition is called diverticulitis.

Not Pooping Regularly Can Be A Sign That You Are Building Up Toxins In The Body

The problem with pouches (diverticula) forming in along the large intestine is that poop will get trapped in them which will allow bacteria to grow in them. This can lead to inflammation and infection in the large intestine, which will compromise the large intestine’s ability to move waste through it, causing more bacteria and toxins to build in it. This will corrode the intestine and allow bacteria and toxins to escape the intestine and enter the body causing more damage.

Seems like a cycle is developing here. The backed up waste in the rectum also starts to build up with harmful bacteria that produce toxins that are harmful to the body. (Note: Even with me cleaning out my system and gaining increased energy, I find that when I don’t go poop when my body is calling for me to go, it makes me a little more sluggish. My body is telling me that it isn’t comfortable holding this waste and I need to get rid of it.)

How To Combat Poop Buildup

We must add more fiber in the diet, especially in the western diet. The best way is to do add fiber naturally is by eating more vegetables, fruits, nuts, legumes, and grains. Eating these foods will give you a balance of fiber and nutrients that will promote proper digestion. Drink more water. I drink at least a half gallon of water a day.

Cut down or remove dairy from the diet. Stop eating processed foods because their fiber is removed. Stop eating meat that is flooded with hormones, antibiotics, preservatives and additives that are foreign to the body and disrupt the digestive process. Try to eat organic meat if you are going to eat meat. Stop letting people play God with your food. Eat natural unprocessed foods. The body can only take so much unnatural food before is starts to break down…

References:
Diverticulitis