Vegetables That Cause Gas In Men

By Madhu Babu

Vegetables are the healthiest part of your diet, which provides your body most of the essential nutrients in natural form. However there are some vegetables that come with all the goodies and some undesired side effects. Such vegetables, apart from providing you with their share of essential nutrients, result in more than normal gas formation and bloating in your abdomen. This results in uneasiness post meals and thereafter making you relieve yourself of gases once too often.
In certain cases, people start to develop pain due to excessive gas formation. Vegetables rich in different forms of sugars such as raffinose, lactose, fructose and sorbitol cause more than normal gas in your body. Raffinose is a complex sugar found in vegetables, and known to cause excessive bloating and abdominal pain associated with gas. Some foods produce more gas than others. However, this is different for every individual and food that produces gas for one person may not do so for another.

When you notice difference and abnormality regarding gas formation after having meal rich in certain vegetables, it is important to make note and reduce the intake of such vegetables. Some of the vegetables that induce excess gas in stomach after consuming them are Onions, Celery, Carrots, Brussels Sprouts, Cucumber, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Radishes. You can't totally stop consuming such healthy foods just to avoid gas. Hence it is advisable to reduce their intake in quantity and take them with longer gaps.

Here are some vegetables that cause excess gas than normal in men.

Onions

Onions

This is one vegetable that is basic to major staple diets across the country. Avoiding onion in cooking is difficult, however, its quantity can be reduced to avoid chances of bloating and excess gas formation. There are too many health benefits related to onions to avoid completely.

Brussels sprouts

Brussels sprouts

It comes from a specie that include cabbage, broccoli etc. They contain good amounts of vitamin A, vitamin C, folic acid and dietary fibre. However, it contains complex carbohydrate called oligosaccharides that causes bloating and excess gas formation during digestion.

Corn

Corn

This is another form of staple diet that is rich in many nutrients as well as sucrose. Due to high percentage of starch and sugars present in corn, it results in gas formation while digestion. It consists of complex carbohydrate that is difficult to digest along with high-fibre and natural sugar present in it causes gas during digestion.

Broccoli

Broccoli

Broccoli is a member of the cabbage family, which is rich in vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals that are highly beneficial to your health. Despite its potential benefits, some people avoid eating broccoli because it gives them intestinal gas. Presence of a sugar in broccoli called raffinose, which cannot b e broken down by enzymes in our digestive system, results in gas formation.

Cabbage

Cabbage

Cabbage is another vegetable that is rich source of carbohydrates that are highly beneficial to health. However due to the same complex carbohydrates present in cabbage called oligosaccharides. A by product of digesting oligosaccharides is formation of gas.

Beans

Beans

There are over a thousand varieties of beans, each one of them is healthy in a different way. Beans contain a triple sugar stachyose, a quadruple sugar raffinose and a five sugar verbascose that we cannot digest. We are missing an enzyme that is required to break down these sugars.

Beets

Beets

If you have a sensitive gastrointestinal system or have irritable bowel syndrome, eating beets may cause you gastrointestinal (excess gas formation) discomfort, including bloating, flatulence, abdominal pain and cramping. Beets contain carbohydrate called polysaccharides, which is a form of sugar that is difficult to digest forming gas.

Story first published: Sunday, December 1, 2013, 13:09 [IST]
Read more about: diet