The smell may come mostly from sulfur gases that the bacteria in your gut make while they work on your dinner. So you cleared the room, and the blame was fair. Look, I've emptied a whole beach bar at sunset with one bad decision and a skillet in my claw. Sit down. Nobody at my end of the bar is pointing.
The bacteria in your large intestine help break down carbohydrates, the starches and sugars, and they make gas while they're at it, says the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, which adds that the odor may be due to sulfur in that gas. So technically, you didn't make it. You hosted it.
A 1998 study in the journal Gut found sulfur gases are the major smelly part of a fart, though not the only one, and the worse a sample smelled, the more hydrogen sulfide it tended to hold. They're outnumbered, too: more than 99% of the volume of a fart is gases that don't smell, says See The Air. Small crew, big reputation.
You know the smell even if you never knew its name. Hydrogen sulfide can add a rotten-egg odor, and broccoli cooking on the stove gives off its own whiff tied to its high sulfur content, the Cleveland Clinic says. Same sulfur. Different address.
And you're not special, which I mean kindly. Most people's guts make hydrogen sulfide too, by way of their gut bacteria, says a paper with the excellent title "A Whiff of Sulfur: One Wind a Day Keeps the Doctor Away". You went first.
Some nights it's worse than others. Excessive or smelly farts can come from swallowing air or eating foods that are difficult to digest, says the NHS. That's not a character flaw. That's intake.
So the room cleared. Mine did too, and the sunset kept going and the stools filled back up by the next round. Now you've got a name for yours: sulfur. Next time, keep an eye on the two things the NHS names, swallowed air and food that's hard to digest, and if it happens anyway, say the name out loud. A smell with a name is half forgiven.
