If you are a living, breathing human, there’s a pretty good chance that you poop. Poop in the excrement released from our bodies after getting food is finished powering our body. We usually just flush it away, but what if there’s something more that you’re missing.
Since we’ve spent so much time around poop, we feel like we could serve as resident experts. In this blog, we discuss why there’s more to your poop than you think.
Poop: Waste Management The Natural Way
The conversion of fresh food into excrement begins in the mouth, where your spit acts as an early digestion aid. After this, your esophagus and upper digestive tract will use more enzymes to break down nutrients and energy further.
Once the food has been mechanically and chemically digested, the energy and nutrients are absorbed by the body and serve as nourishment. What the body can’t take, is turned into excrement, which is then expelled. It’s a simple process with many moving parts.
But, poop could be much more productive if used correctly. Not as fuel, but as a tool for information and revitalization.
Poop As Information
Poop may not be useful in the conventional sense, it could be used as just another important biomarker of health.
The reason for this is that your poop contains much of the gut bacteria used to breakdown the initial servings of food.
The presence or absence of any of these gut bacteria could spell some sort of issue with your digestive system. That information may be used to tell how treatment has been affecting a patient, to suggest new dietary recommendations, and much more.
Poop As Medicine
In extreme circumstances, the gut microbiome is reduced so much that it causes very serious problems. In these cases, a fecal transplant is a viable option. A fecal transplant consists of administering healthy fecal matter to a patient, in the aim of fixing their gut environment.
Like many parts of the body, the gut is a world of its own, owing its fantastic properties to the way in which bacteria interacts in it. Without a balanced bacterial environment, a range of issues can occur during the process.
Now, with the power of technology and the help of healthy volunteers, poop can now serve as a way to help people recover from conditions.
Poop As Regenerative
If you’ve ever tried your hand at gardening or farming, you’ll know that the work of food doesn’t just stop after we’ve eaten. When animals pee and poop, that material is then utilized by the soil to liven up and regenerate. Mushrooms, bacteria, plants, and more rely on the return of that material back to the ground.
While it may sound gross, you could use your own poop for compost to grow food with. This way, you complete the cycle that has been interrupted by the invention of plumbing in society.
If you don’t want to use your own poop, try other animals who are eating a natural diet to get manure from if possible.
Cues That Your Poop Is Healthy
So now you know how your poop could actually be useful instead of an annoying part of eating food. But how can you spot if your poop is healthy or may be a sign of health issues?
Well, there is actually a chart for that called the Bristol Stool Chart. The Bristol Stool chart outlines the 7 most common types of excrement, as well as what they may be a sign of.
Types 1 and 2 are associated with constipation, Types 3 and 4 are normal, and 5-7 typically reflect diarrhea or inflammation.
In addition to the shape of your poop, you should check the color and consistency as well. If your poop is an abnormal color, it could reflect other problems that you may not be aware of.
Finally, you could have your doctor conduct tests on your fecal matter to fully analyze its composition.
It may feel gross to inspect your own excrement, but it truly could provide some valuable insight into your health that you may be missing out on.
Trust Sarabias For Your Waste Management Needs
In our culture, food gets all of the praise, but the other side of that coin gets largely ignored. At Sarabias, we spent every day dealing with the dirtier sides of life to keep our community clean. Contact us today for top-notch waste management in El Paso!
