WHY ? is our effort to answerall the motion every slight kid asks . Have a interrogative ? Send it towhy@mentalfloss.com .

If you eat , you poop ! Let ’s verbalize about eating first . When you eat , thesaliva(suh - LIE - vuh ) in your mouth break down the food using enzyme . When you swallow , the food travels down a long , soft tube in your chest called theesophagus(e - SOFF - uh - GUS ) . It guide to your tummy , which is shaped like the alphabetic character J. Your abdomen usesgastric(GAS - trick ) acids to stomach or break down the food so your body can take the parts it use . Then , it move into long underground called your minuscule and large intestines , into your Aspinwall , and out through your anus — and hopefully , into the toilet !

Now let ’s babble about turd ! There ’s a lot of stuff in your poop that your body ca n’t digest , absorb ( like a sponge does ) , or does n’t need . There is water , fibrous(FY - brus ) parts of food , bacteria , fatty back breaker , and quondam red pedigree cells from the liver that are in an orangish - chocolate-brown marrow calledbilirubin(BILL - ee - RU - bin ) . Bilirubin fuse with more yellowy hooey from the liver call gall . Just like when you unify a mickle of blusher colors together , when you flux all this together , the result is brown . Sometimes shite is a sour chocolate brown , sometimes it ’s a light flaxen brown . Every once in a while , it come out a different color .

Chloe Effron

solid food comes in all kinds of colour , but poop unremarkably come out brown . Yet some food can become your poop a different color ! If you eat a Beta vulgaris , which is dreary pink to Bolshevik , your poop might turn a little purple . Healthy fleeceable leafy vegetables like spinach or kale can move around it green . If you have a tummy ache and your body raise extramucus(myoo - kus ) , the pallid , jelly - like stuff can make your tail look lighter in coloration . Most of the prison term , however , your shit wo n’t surprise you . No matter how many color of the rainbow you exhaust , it will mostly do out brown .

For   more about how food move from the mouthpiece to the buttocks , visit KidsHealth’sYour Digestive System .

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