# Undigested seeds



## *Luna* (Nov 19, 2001)

I noticed today that my poop was all speckled, and that there seemed to be seeds in it. When wiping at that messy poo, there were big pieces of sunflower seeds in there. I had a wonderfully yummy veggie burger made with sunflower seed pieces yesterday, and had not had any others in quite a while. So the transit time for that meal was about 20 hours, and probably would have been less if I had woken up earlier. This seems pretty short to me...what are transit times supposed to be? This was a softer BM, but not what I would call D. And it felt kinda like it had a bunch of seeds in it...less comfortable than usual. A second soft BM a bit later was the same.Are we supposed to digest seeds? I've noticed millet seeds seem to go through me untouched. I never noticed this with sunflowers before, but I don't usually eat that many at once, and I don't look at most BMs that closely. The speckles caught my eye today! There were dark specks and sunflower seed specks.Wasn't this a lovely thead to read?


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## amygurl (Aug 26, 2001)

Just like corn!







You can chew it up and it still comes out whole!







Go figure.


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## amygurl (Aug 26, 2001)

Just like corn!







You can chew it up and it still comes out whole!







Go figure.


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## tezbear (Aug 11, 2000)

I get that sometimes and then sometimes I don't. My 10 yr old son who doesn't have IBS tells me he always sees the sesame seeds in his poop after eating a hamburger bun w/ s. seeds. Just hard for anyone to digest like corn.


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## tezbear (Aug 11, 2000)

I get that sometimes and then sometimes I don't. My 10 yr old son who doesn't have IBS tells me he always sees the sesame seeds in his poop after eating a hamburger bun w/ s. seeds. Just hard for anyone to digest like corn.


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## *Luna* (Nov 19, 2001)

I forgot about the corn phenomenon... I don't remember noticing much corn in my BMs before, but I guess it's a common thing.I had several "seedy" BMs yesterday, and just had another today! Makes me wonder just how long I can poop seeds from one meal! I guess this could lead to some interesting observations about the way things go through the digestive system.Meanwhile, these big seed pieces aren't exactly soft, and my rear is getting progressively more irritated, so I hope most of them are out already!


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## *Luna* (Nov 19, 2001)

I forgot about the corn phenomenon... I don't remember noticing much corn in my BMs before, but I guess it's a common thing.I had several "seedy" BMs yesterday, and just had another today! Makes me wonder just how long I can poop seeds from one meal! I guess this could lead to some interesting observations about the way things go through the digestive system.Meanwhile, these big seed pieces aren't exactly soft, and my rear is getting progressively more irritated, so I hope most of them are out already!


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

20 hours is in the normal transit time range (18-72 hours).Using seeds/corn or other difficult to digestables is one way to get a rough transit time estimate.IT IS NORMAL for things to pass through the GI tract unmolested by the digestive process. One way to figure out what an animal eats when it is shy and doesn't like to be seen by scientists is to find some of its poo and pull it apart and look at the undigestible bits that end up in it (bits of bone, seeds, fibrous material, etc). This even works with fossilized poo for those animals that require a time machine for scientists to watch eat







see http://www.scirpus.ca/dung/dung.shtml K.


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

20 hours is in the normal transit time range (18-72 hours).Using seeds/corn or other difficult to digestables is one way to get a rough transit time estimate.IT IS NORMAL for things to pass through the GI tract unmolested by the digestive process. One way to figure out what an animal eats when it is shy and doesn't like to be seen by scientists is to find some of its poo and pull it apart and look at the undigestible bits that end up in it (bits of bone, seeds, fibrous material, etc). This even works with fossilized poo for those animals that require a time machine for scientists to watch eat







see http://www.scirpus.ca/dung/dung.shtml K.


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## *Luna* (Nov 19, 2001)

Thanks K







And that website...







..here I was thinking they looked at remains from cooking areas and at tools and teeth to see what people ate in the past...I guess my teacher forgot to mention analysis of latrine samples...







I knew scientists analyzed seeds and stuff in poop when looking at other animals, but silly me didn't apply that to humans until I read your post.







Oh well.







So do we (or other animals) EVER digest seeds? Or do they usually go through the digestive system intact?? Now that the brain is working a little better again, I'm remembering that passing through birds and other animals is an important part of seed distribution for some plants.


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## *Luna* (Nov 19, 2001)

Thanks K







And that website...







..here I was thinking they looked at remains from cooking areas and at tools and teeth to see what people ate in the past...I guess my teacher forgot to mention analysis of latrine samples...







I knew scientists analyzed seeds and stuff in poop when looking at other animals, but silly me didn't apply that to humans until I read your post.







Oh well.







So do we (or other animals) EVER digest seeds? Or do they usually go through the digestive system intact?? Now that the brain is working a little better again, I'm remembering that passing through birds and other animals is an important part of seed distribution for some plants.


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

I have a talent for finding things on the Weird Wide Web.I don't know if all seeds survive digestion by all birds/animals, but IF memory serves there are some seeds that pretty much cannot sprout until they have been through a GI tract.Like some seeds do not sprout until they have been exposed to fire...they are really really tough (so that way they survive really well) but need help in order to sprout. I think there is some balancing point in how tough the seed coat is. Too tough and it will never sprout...too thin and it won't survive even slightly adverse conditions. Some are hard enough they have to be "scored" in some way to sprout--some plant seed people file just a bit so they can sprout.One other way they are trying to analyze diet is Isotopes in the hair of Carbon and Nitrogen. There are two kinds of plants that get different weights of Carbon and land animals vs sea animals give different weights of Nitrogen (basically slight differences in the composition of the atom's nucleus).So someone who eats a lot of corn-fed beef ends up with a very different profile from someone who lives in a fishing village, and you can tell vegetarians from meat eaters...etc.The funny thing was they got a bunch of students for it one who was a Vegan. Well the Vegan didn't end up on the analysis where she was supposed to and they asked her about what she was eating that was not vegan... apparently every week or so she had a craving for Virginia ham and would go to the deli and get one slice which was what gave her the animal protien nitrogen spot in her data.What they wanted was a set of data they could compare ancient hairs (like from mummies) to.K.


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

I have a talent for finding things on the Weird Wide Web.I don't know if all seeds survive digestion by all birds/animals, but IF memory serves there are some seeds that pretty much cannot sprout until they have been through a GI tract.Like some seeds do not sprout until they have been exposed to fire...they are really really tough (so that way they survive really well) but need help in order to sprout. I think there is some balancing point in how tough the seed coat is. Too tough and it will never sprout...too thin and it won't survive even slightly adverse conditions. Some are hard enough they have to be "scored" in some way to sprout--some plant seed people file just a bit so they can sprout.One other way they are trying to analyze diet is Isotopes in the hair of Carbon and Nitrogen. There are two kinds of plants that get different weights of Carbon and land animals vs sea animals give different weights of Nitrogen (basically slight differences in the composition of the atom's nucleus).So someone who eats a lot of corn-fed beef ends up with a very different profile from someone who lives in a fishing village, and you can tell vegetarians from meat eaters...etc.The funny thing was they got a bunch of students for it one who was a Vegan. Well the Vegan didn't end up on the analysis where she was supposed to and they asked her about what she was eating that was not vegan... apparently every week or so she had a craving for Virginia ham and would go to the deli and get one slice which was what gave her the animal protien nitrogen spot in her data.What they wanted was a set of data they could compare ancient hairs (like from mummies) to.K.


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