# Red Food Dye/Red Poo?



## NatalieS (Jun 22, 2009)

I have IBS-D that has just flared up again recently. I had no problem with it for several years and due to a high stress situation lately, it has reared it's ugly head again. I've been able to tame it a bit with fiber, so that is a relief, however it does not get rid of the horrible cramps and urgency to go.Anyways, I've noticed with this flare up that red food dyes don't seem to be "processing" right. I had some fruit flavored drink last night and cherry pie and noticed that I had red stool this morning. I panicked at first thinking it was blood, but am not so sure it is. Does anyone else have this problem? Or do you feel I should have this checked out?


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

A lot of food dyes are not absorbed by the body and come out the way they went down.Natural colors in food can do it too. Eat enough beets you get red poo. You aren't supposed to absorb every single thing in food, so it isn't a sign of something wrong that you don't always absorb everything. (and then you'd just pee it out making the pee a funny color...a lot of these colors are not something your body needs and often are too big to go into the body on their own).Some artifical colors (especially some of the purple ones) will change color from the pH changes in the gut (which is how pH tests for like the pool work, at different pH's some compounds are different colors) so may come out a bright color that didn't go down. Purples tend to turn bright grass green.Sometimes when stools are loose you get less of the dark brown color so it is easier to see odd things like this. The dark brown color is from the bacteria in the colon processing the colored compounds in the bile you do not reabsorb. If you aren't having the time to turn as much of that from a light color to a dark brown you may see more of the other colors that you ate that you do not absorb.http://ibdcrohns.about.com/cs/otherdisease...stoolcolors.htm gives a list of some of the things that can make poo be something other than brown.


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## Bonzi (Mar 18, 2010)

If I eat tomatoes or other hard digested red foods(pepper,etc) its scattered throughout my stool. Strawberries too.


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## NatalieS (Jun 22, 2009)

Thank you so much Kathleen for the information. I really appreciate it and it has set my mind at ease as well. It was concerning to me, especially with it being red, and this has made me feel better. I will continue to watch to make sure that this was the culprit.


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

Definitely something to keep an eye on to see if it was just the food coloring. But most of the time it is something harmless and something you ingested, especially when it is a one off and you know you ate something.It is also normal to have bits of hard to break up food in your stool. A lot of things can only be broken up by chewing and so come out the same way they went down. The looser the stool is the easier it is to see those bits and if you want to see less of them about the only thing you can do is chew more.


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## Borrellifan (May 5, 2009)

Kathleen M. said:


> Definitely something to keep an eye on to see if it was just the food coloring. But most of the time it is something harmless and something you ingested, especially when it is a one off and you know you ate something.It is also normal to have bits of hard to break up food in your stool. A lot of things can only be broken up by chewing and so come out the same way they went down. The looser the stool is the easier it is to see those bits and if you want to see less of them about the only thing you can do is chew more.


I've been getting gross orange color from taking so much metamucil fiber (orange flavored) it dissapears when I don't take it.


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## rosielee (Dec 14, 2009)

why dont you keep a food diary- and check what it looks like after what youve eaten- if you havent eaten red stuff and its still red then youll know- if you dont eat red stuff and it doesnt come out red- then youll also know for deffinate- if its blood it will be like it most times- i think you need to keep an eye on it still- otherwsie its goign to cause you anxiety,


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