Today I had a meal that included lots of healthy steamed vegetables. An hour or so later I went to the restroom and noticed that my urine had a really strong odor. I knew what it was immediately – asparagus. For those of you out there that don’t know this unusual fact, let me give you the story.

The human digestive system breaks down asparagus within 30 minutes. One of the chemicals contained in asparagus is called mercaptan*. During digestion the decomposition of this chemical is what is believed to cause the horrible smell known as asparagus urine or stinky pee. Asparagus also contains several other sulfur-based chemicals that are also found in such ghastly odors as skunk spray, garlic breath, and rotten eggs. This fact has caused many in the scientific community to debate which of these chemicals or combination of chemicals causes the stinky pee smell.

Interestingly, some people eat asparagus, go to the restroom, and don’t detect the stinky pee smell. It was suggested that certain people do not possess the enzymes required to create stinky pee. Others have suggested that people who could produce stinky pee after eating asparagus have higher intelligence than those that don’t. Both of these notions and several others are of course total nonsense.

In an effort to make sense of it all, a scientist decided to take the urine of non-stinky pee producers and let stinky pee producers smell it. It was found that the smell was detectable by the stinky pee producers. The results seem to suggest that genetics may control the ability to produce stinky pee, the ability to smell it, or possibly both. Obviously, more research is needed. The question is: who pays for this kind of research?

Anyway, there you have it. It’s all so simple when you break things down scientifically. And with that, yet another mystery has been solved.

Until next time….

* mercaptan [murkăp’tăn]or thiol [thī’ōl] , any of a class of organic compounds containing the group -SH bonded to a carbon atom. The volatile low-molecular-weight mercaptans have disagreeable odors. Mercaptans are found in crude petroleum, and methyl mercaptan is produced as a decay product of animal and vegetable matter. They also are produced by certain plants and animals; e.g., allyl mercaptan is released when onions are cut, butanethiol (butyl mercaptan) derivatives are present in skunk secretion, and mercaptans are among the sulfur compounds causing the disagreeable odor of flatus. T-butyl mercaptan blends are often added to the odorless natural gas used for cooking and serve to warn of gas leaks. Mercaptans take part in a wide variety of chemical reactions. Their principal uses are in jet fuels, pharmaceuticals, and livestock-feed additives.