What Does Your Poop Say About You?
May 27, 2022
Your poop is a reflection of your overall health. In-depth analysis of your poop can discover if maldigestion, infection, inflammation, dysbiosis, or any metabolic imbalances may be occurring in your body. Changes in bowel habits is definitely something to pay attention to as they may be a sign of an underlying health condition.
Your poop is made up of: 75% water, and the remaining contents is a mixture of indigestible vegetable fiber, bacteria, and metabolic waste (cholesterol, medicines etc.)
Water helps to ensure that your feces are soft enough to transport metabolic wastes out of our bodies safely. The bacteria ending up in stool are both dead and alive organisms. The more fruits and vegetables you eat, the more feces you excrete per bowel movement. The metabolic wastes include a breakdown of our red blood cells, bile, and things your body wants to get rid of.
Color
The natural color of poop is brown. However, poop can fluctuate between various color changes and not signal a serious medical condition, but sometimes it can be something more serious. Bilirubin is a yellowish substance in the blood that is formed after red blood cells break down. Bilirubin then travels through your liver and gallbladder, before ending up in the gut, where it interacts with your gut bacteria to turn your poop brown.
Yellow: excess fat showing up in the stool indicating a malabsorption of fat, a small intestine infection/inflammation, disorders affecting the pancreas, liver or gallbladder or celiac disease. 
Black or dark brown: iron supplements, bismuth subsalicylate, foods like black licorice, or bleeding in the upper digestive tract like the stomach. If you are producing dark tarry stools or a coffee ground like appearance stool, this can be a sign of a more serious health condition and you should go see your doctor. 
White/grey: lack of bile in the stool, possibly from a blocked bile duct. 
Green: green food coloring, green vegetables high in chlorophyll like spinach or kale, antibiotics, bacterial infection, or bile pigment that has not been able to break down if stool is moving too quickly out of the body.
Red: red foods like beets, drinks or dyes, bleeding from your lower gut or rectum. Hemorrhoids can produce bright red blood, or something more serious like colon polyps or cancer. See your doctor for further investigation if you have continuous rectal bleeding and large quantities of blood present in the stool. Sometimes stool doesn't always appear bright red and it's not visible to the eye if there is blood called "occult" blood. Tests like the fecal occult blood test can detect hidden blood in the stool. 
Mucous: Mucus lubricates your intestines to protect them and make stool easy to pass. If you notice thick, jellylike mucus sitting on your stool this can mean inflammation or irritation of the intestinal wall indicating a food sensitivity, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) or bacterial imbalance.
Undigested food: corn is normal but skins of fruits and vegetables like apples, carrots, tomatoes, leafy greens may indicate stress, poor digestive enzyme production, or not chewing your food properly. Consistency
The Bristol Stool Chart was published in 1997 for helping to characterize stool into seven different shapes. This chart can help determine a person's type of feces and can be a good indicator to whether your digestive system is functioning properly.
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Type 1 can remain in the gut for 100 hours before passing through the system, identified as constipation. Type 2 also has a slow transit time in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract.
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Types 3 and 4 are signs of a healthy digestive tract, but type 4 is the most optimal consistency as type 3 may indicate various degrees of dehydration.
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Type 4 requires little to no strain to pass out of your body, and little wiping with toilet paper is needed.
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Type 5 is a sign you need to eat more fiber to bulk up your stool
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If you fluctuate between types 5/6 and type 1, check with a medical professional to investigate underlying bacterial imbalances or food allergies.
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Types 6/7 are more likely to have nutritional deficiencies
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Type 7 can pass through in 10 hours (diarrhea), this usually indicates a bacterial imbalance, inflammation or a stressed-out colon.
Factors Influencing Your Poop
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Stress
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Diet
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Travel
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Dehydration
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Age-related changes
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Activity levels
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Medications/supplements
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Illness (food poisoning - gastroenteritis) or gut dysbiosis
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Hormone related changes during menstruation or pregnancy
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Inflammatory Bowel Disease, colon cancer, other medical conditions
Making a Healthy Poop
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It is normal and healthy to poop daily
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Avoiding inflammatory foods or food sensitivities
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Drinking a minimum of 2 litres of water each day
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A diet rich in fiber: 5-10 servings of fruits and veggies a day
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Exercise and movement daily
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Chewing your food
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Slowing down and eating mindfully
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Not multi-tasking when eating
You may need additional support to make healthy poops like supplements to support your stomach acid, digestive enzymes, specific probiotic strains or needing to rebalance your gut flora if there is a dysbiosis occurring.
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