If you’ve ever eaten asparagus and soon noticed a terrible smell when you urinate, you can blame asparagusic acid. That’s the simple explanation, but there’s a lot more to it. Dr. Daniel Whitehead is a chemistry professor at Clemson University, and somewhat of an expert in bad smells. His research involves fighting against them, so the sacrifice may be worth it. He explains why asparagusic acid is potent- it contains a double dose of sulphur. Sulphur is what makes skunks smell the way they do, and rotten eggs, and roadkill, and all manner of things that aren’t good for us. Yet asparagus doesn’t smell that way until our bodies break down the asparagusic acid into its sulphuric components.
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But maybe asparagus doesn’t affect your urine that way. Or maybe it does, but you can’t smell it. Both these conditions are are in the minority, and you wouldn’t know which you fit into unless you lived with someone who could smell it, or looked for those genes in a genetic test. You get the feeling that the people that fall into these different categories should be plottable on a Venn diagram, but they really have no relation to each other and can appear in any combination. I have no idea what category I would fit into because I don’t like asparagus and have no interest in eating it to find out. Find out more than you ever thought you needed to know about asparagus and urine at Serious Eats.
(Image credit: H. Zell)
Source: neatorama