9 Facts About Farts That Might Actually Make You Appreciate Them

1. Only 1% of your fart actually smells.

 Yup — even that little one that no one heard but everyone in a 1,000 mile radius smelled. 99% of that fart was odorless gases like carbon dioxide, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and methane. That leaves 1% of the smelly stuff, hydrogen sulfide. And considering how bad your farts can smell sometimes (just admit it), that hydrogen sulfide is some pretty strong stuff!

2. Certain foods make your farts smell worse than others. When you eat sulfur rich foods like eggs and meat, your farts will smell worse because that food breaks down and creates hydrogen sulfide, AKA, rotten egg gas.

3. Women's farts smell worse than men's. As hard as it is to believe, it's true. Although women and men produce the same amount of flatulence, a study conducted by Dr. Levitt found that women's farts consistently contain significantly greater concentrations of hydrogen sulfide — the stuff that makes them smell.

4. You probably don't fart as much as you think you do.  Often, people go to their doctor complaining of having too much gas, but chances are, you're just imagining it.  These people are often told to go home and keep a record of when they fart in a journal. Flatologist Michael Levitt, M.D. found that most of these people fall within the normal range of farts per day (see #5) and "they simply have to be informed of their 'normality.'"  

5. Most people fart about 14 to 22 times a day. Yeah, if someone tells you they don't fart, they're lying. Or else there's something  seriously wrong...

6. Fart jokes are timeless. The oldest joke in history is actually a fart joke. It's an ancient Sumerian proverb dating back to 1900 BC that says, "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap." *ba-boom tsssss*

7. Farts can explode.  As ridiculous as it seems when someone sets their fart on fire in those wildly popular bro-y comedy flicks, your farts really ARE flammable.  Two chemicals in farts, methane and hydrogen, are flammable, which is what makes it possible to make a small explosion if you hold a lighter up to your butt when you fart. Not saying you should though. In fact, definitely don't unless you want to risk burning yourself or starting a fire.  It's really not that funny.

8. Farts are really fast. They've clocked in at 3.05 meters per second, which is roughly 7 miles per hour.  That's faster than your standard hoverboard btw, which are also, coincidentally, flammable.

9. You're not the only one whose farts go weird places. A woman took to Reddit to ponder something strange that happened to her when she farted, asking, "Do you ever fart and the fart goes past your vagina and your labia moves?" Perhaps she thought she was the only one who had experienced this farting phenomenon, but turns out, she isn't. Hundreds of women responded to her post, revealing they too had experienced it. Apparently, this phenomenon has a name too. It's called a "vart".