Some foods cause gas in almost everyone, but the amount each person produces is highly individual. Even though passing gas is an everyday occurrence for most people, it can be embarrassing or cause pain if there is an overabundance.

There are two ways that gas forms in the digestive tract: by swallowing air, and from the breakdown of foods by natural bacteria that each person has in their large intestine.

Gas From Swallowed Air
Excessive air can be swallowed in many ways. Eating and drinking too rapidly, talking while you’re eating, chewing gum, smoking, and wearing dentures that don’t fit properly can all introduce air into the stomach. Most of this air is expelled by burping, but some of it continues down further. The small intestines absorb part of the air, which mixes with food and becomes an odorous gas. The rest of the gas continues into the large intestine and leaves the body through the rectum.

How Foods Can Cause Gas
Everyone has an assortment of bacteria in the large intestine, or colon, that are responsible for digesting certain foods. This digestive process creates gas. The bacteria work on foods that aren’t broken down further up in the gastrointestinal tract, in the stomach or small intestine. These foods tend to be complex carbohydrates, such as sugars and starches, and cellulose.

 Why is it that you can eat green peppers and get painful gas, while your dinner companions aren’t bothered at all? Each person has their own unique mix of intestinal bacteria from the time they are born that affect the amount and kind of gases they produce. Hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and, in some people, methane are part of the mix, while trace gases, such as hydrogen sulfide, are responsible for the smell. Foods that give one person gas can pass through another without producing any.

 Foods That Cause Gas
Many foods that are the culprits for gas are carbohydrates. Fats and proteins don’t produce very much gas, although some proteins can make it smell worse. Certain sugars, starches and soluble fibers cause the majority of gas. What particular foods are likely to give you trouble?

  • Vegetables. Beans are the major offender, but also watch out for cabbage, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, asparagus, onions, artichokes, potatoes, corn, barley, lentils peas. You can reduce gas caused from beans by soaking them, then discarding the water.
  • Dairy Products. Milk, ice cream and cheese. They contain lactose, which many people, particularly of African, Native American or Asian background, cannot digest well. In addition, the enzymes needed to digest lactose decrease as people age, so that dairy products may produce increasing gas as someone gets older.
  • Processed Foods. Bread, noodles, cereal, salad dressing.
  • Sweeteners. Fructose, found in some drinks, and sorbitol, often used in sugarfree gum and candy.
  • Fruit. Apples, pears, cherries, peaches and prunes and most other fruit.
  • Nuts and Seeds. Almonds, cashews, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds and more.
  • Alcohol. Wine and dark beer.

Finally, if you’re looking for a food that is absolutely safe to eat, there is one. Rice is easily digested by anyone.