No more burping due to no carbs?!?

March 11, 2012 4:28 AM

Burping and no-carb diet. Specifically, can a LACK of burping be due to the no-carb diet? Has this been anyone's experience?

I have always been a big burper, even tho I don't drink soda. This was my question. A few years after this question, my boss talked to me about my belching - apparently it irked someone near my office. That's how bad it was.

Tonight, after drinking a lot of wine, I started burping, and my partner and I realized that I hadn't burped in weeks.

Can this possibly be due to cutting out carbs? I've been pretty strict since January - no pasta, no bread, no rice, no spuds - just to see what would happen. It's boring as hell and I was planning on quitting it.

But apparently what's happened is that I've stopped burping. This is an unexpected result, and I can't account for it. There have been no other changes in my diet - I still don't drink soda or coffee, and haven't altered my manner of drinking liquids (which is always a lot of water).

Can anyone here help me understand this? Has this been your experience?

posted by goofyfoot to Health & Fitness (10 answers total)

Um, so if you were "drinking a lot of wine" you are most definitely NOT on a no-carb diet. Wine has plenty of carbs in it. Actually it's pretty hard to be on a no-carb diet at all; you'd have to eat straight protein and fat and not even any vegetables. It's not just about cutting out bread and pasta.

But anyway... yes, cutting out grains could definitely reduce your gas. Bacteria in the digestive system breaking down carbs are largely responsible for gas. However, it's also due to swallowed air, so I am guessing you have burped, but just less frequently. I know for myself, pasta seems to make me especially windy.
posted by parrot_person at 5:09 AM on March 11, 2012

Absolutely. I find I burp and fart far more when I'm eating starchy carbs. These days I rarely do either and I eat mostly lean meat, fish and lots of fruit and vegetables.
posted by essexjan at 5:58 AM on March 11, 2012 [2 favorites]

Yes. I used to burp a lot - a LOT. It's usually silent so people don't realize, but I always cover my mouth, so my friends and coworkers think of randomly covering ones mouth as "the telegraph thing". It's due to gas from eating foods that I've learned upset my stomach: pasta and bread, mostly. Interestingly white rice doesn't bother my stomach, so it isn't strictly carbs, but it does sound like you stumbled on some foods that bother your stomach.
posted by telegraph at 7:11 AM on March 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yeah I had the same experience -- I produce a lot less gas -- in both ways -- when I'm not eating starchy carbs -- the worst ones for me are wheat and legumes. Rice doesn't have the same effect, as telegraph notes above.
posted by peacheater at 8:29 AM on March 11, 2012

Yes, adding to my earlier reply and to what telegraph and peacheater have said above, the only starches I tend to eat these days are oats and rice in fairly small quantities (less than half a cup of each per day, if that), and they're not farty at all. Wheat is really bad, particularly if combined with yeast as bread.
posted by essexjan at 9:30 AM on March 11, 2012

Burping after drinking wine and eating wheat products (as well as other fructose- and fructan-containing products) can be a sign of fructose intolerance. Do you burp after eating other products with high fructose content such as honey, colas with high-fructose corn syrup, fruits or fruit juices, etc?
posted by scrambles at 10:08 AM on March 11, 2012

Yep, I believe this is a very common side benefit of cutting carbs. For me it practically eliminated not just gas and bloating, but also heartburn in addition to losing weight. Never going back!
posted by platinum at 10:56 AM on March 11, 2012

I'll add my point to the anecdata. My husband and I dropped simple carb (grains; especially wheat, legumes, most starchy roots, nearly all dairy) from our diets several months ago, as he had been recently showing symptoms of mild Crohn's and has been generally prone to inexplicable levels of fatigue and muscle soreness after exercise for all the years I've known him, despite being a fit, competitive amateur athlete. I thought the gas we both frequently endured was merely a symptom of living with a vegetarian, turns out it's a carb-related thing. Not only have we been a lot less gassy, but we've both lost fat, gained muscle, and have quite a bit more energy. No more bouts of debilitating post-workout soreness for him, no more mood swings and SAD for me.

I recommended the dairy cut, as his brother exhibits strong GERD in response to lactose. His entire maternal family have had various IBD, Crohn's, and other gut syndromes in every generation for at least four generations on the maternal side. Removing grain-based carbs, particularly wheat, and often dairy as well, can frequently significantly improve symptoms of these types of inflammatory bowel / GI syndromes.
posted by lonefrontranger at 12:23 PM on March 11, 2012

Absolutely. I had a LOT of intestinal issues before switching to a fairly paleo diet. I would regularly feel like I had a balloon in my gut for an hour or two after a meal. I don't know whether it was some sort of lactose intolerance or a reaction to carbs or over-eating, but that problem has definitely disappeared since making the switch.

Also, I had some tests run to see if there was a celiac/gluten intolerance situation going on, and they came back negative. So, I don't necessarily have any gluten intolerance, so I can't really pinpoint what was causing it, but something or combinations of things that I cut out really made a big difference. Since I didn't eat a lot of dairy before, I would say it had something to do with grains or sugars.
posted by This_Will_Be_Good at 1:47 PM on March 11, 2012

I never burped (unless I was throwing up) until my gallbladder crapped out. When that started going wrong, I started burping (a lot) and even worse when I got pregnant. Pregnancy hastened the gallbladder disease, got it removed two months post-partum and after two years I'm back to minimal burping.

Just to go against the flow here - carb intake had jack all to do with my burping patters. But my general digestive health did.
posted by geek anachronism at 3:13 AM on March 12, 2012