How to make your pee smell real bad

your body is a wonderland

Hiya clowns!

It is I, the greatest food writer in all of history, your friend Dannis/Dennis Ree/Lee. This week’s edition of the newsletter takes food writing to a whole new territory, because I only know how to blaze trails, mostly off a cliff. Now, most people who write about food generally write about food as it goes into your body, not as it comes out. That leaves about 50% of what actually happens during the eating process generally unreported on. What’s the deal with that?!

After food is processed, it usually comes out the bottom half of your body in the form of a solid (poopoo), and a liquid (peepee). On some occasions, it is both a solid and a liquid (diarrhea). And of course, there is flatulence (butt trumpet). This is all science.

A few weeks ago, I ate a bunch of asparagus during dinner, and later that night, I drank a little alcohol. The next morning, the only liquid I had was coffee. The resulting pee smelled so strong it could have been used as bear repellent. I was both repulsed and impressed at my body’s capabilities. You could have smelled it from about 20 miles away.

Now, as you know, both coffee and asparagus make your pee smell very strong. It’s interesting, because not very many other edible substances do that to your body. It would be pretty cool if hot dogs made your pee smell like hot dogs, or if pound cake made your pee smell like a Sara Lee factory. But the truth is, humanity has only been gifted with a handful of foods that make your pee entertaining later.

So I said to myself, “Dannis, there have got to be other foods in the world that will make your pee smell. What happens if you eat as many as you can in one sitting?”

To begin, I did some research to find out which ingredients supposedly make your pee smell.

My searching brought me to the most scientifically accurate resource on the internet: A wellness blog. This is where many Americans like to get their medical advice, sites that shill concepts like shoving Himalayan dirt up your ass for improved circulation or snorting Sichuan peppercorns for an improved sex life or something. Well and Good, which is a site I imagine also gives a lot of great surgical tips, had a nice long list of food and beverages that supposedly makes your pee smell other than just asparagus.

They are:

• Brussels sprouts

• Onions

• Fish

• Coffee

• Cumin

• Garlic

• Alcohol

• Pineapple (apparently pineapple pee is nice?)

We already had most of the items on the list at home, but I went to the store for the remaining stuff, save the pineapple. Well and Good claims that pineapple makes your pee smell nice but I was really going for repulsive, so I skipped it.

First off, I cooked off some asparagus, onions, and garlic and put them in the refrigerator.

Before I went to bed, I made sure to have an alcoholic beverage to prime my bladder’s reservoir for the day ahead. The next morning, the first thing I did was drink some black coffee. Then I microwaved some brussels sprouts and prepared a big fucking plate of vegetables including the asparagus, onion, and garlic mixture, as part of my breakfast. Counting the coffee and the alcohol from the night prior, this is already five out of the seven ingredients that supposedly make your pee stinky.

Talk about multitasking!!! I am a true domestic goddess.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t usually start my day with this much food, nevertheless green vegetables.

This did not seem like an ideal following act to coffee, but I figured that this was for science, so I bravely forged ahead.

I decided to season the greens with a bunch of cumin, since apparently that’s on the pee list too.

Then I demolished nearly all of the plate. The only thing stopping me from scarfing down more vegetables was the fact that I needed to eat some fish, and then the entire pee list would become complete.

Davida and I are fond of canned fish and sometimes we go through a lot of it.

Canned fish is supposedly good for you, especially when it comes to smelly pee. We’re fans of King Oscar because the quality is good and you can get this stuff from a lot of supermarkets.

Also, it was on sale. I am guessing spicy jalapeño sardines aren’t exactly hot sellers.

Of course, I had to add more cumin, just to make sure I was doing it right.

I was already full from the vegetables so eating a whole can of fish didn’t sound like the most appealing idea, but I slammed these lil’ guys down as fast as I could. I sat down for a little bit to make sure that I wouldn’t eject this precious smelly pee fuel out of my facehole (as opposed to my peehole or bhole.)

Then I decided it would probably be a good idea to drink some water to get this pee party started.

It’s hard to tell from this picture but this yellow (which is fitting) plastic cup is pretty big. Once I drank most of it, I let my bladder stew with the asparagus, coffee, cumin, onions, garlic, and fish compounds all inside my body. Then I waited.

About 30 minutes later, I finally had the urge to make peepee. I was like a kid on Christmas morning! I held it in for a little longer then I probably should have, then I went to the bathroom to let it all go. And much to my disappointment, all I smelled was a little bit of asparagus. What a bunch of horseshit. Er, horsepee.

So I thought, okay, maybe I just need to let my body process more of this stuff for longer, before I get my hopes dashed. So I drank some more water and let nature do its thing, and I went again. And again. All I kept getting was a toilet bowl full of clear, mildly asparagus-scented despair.

What I realized later is that I think I drank way too much water, and not enough coffee. I also wasn’t dehydrated, in fact, I was overly hydrated, which probably ended up diluting whatever stinky smells may have been in there. Throughout the day, things didn’t really change much; the asparagus pee smell faded away into the deep nothingness of the abyss. Some people call that a “toilet.”

So basically what happened was that in exchange for a gnarly breakfast of random sulfurous veggies, fish, and coffee, I was awarded with almost zero funny pee.

But in retrospect, now that I think about it, that’s what I get for putting my trust into a wellness blog.

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Trust me, I’m as disappointed as you. But, I’ve retraced my steps from the last time my pee smelled atrocious, which I’ll outline below. Don’t forget to share Food is Stupid on social media. If you’re not a paid subscriber, this is the next best thing you can do, as it grows this ridiculous newsletter:

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How to make your pee smell real bad

After thinking carefully about how my pee smelled so bad the other week, here’s the step by step on how it happened, in case you would like to recreate this on your own time:

• Eat a lot of asparagus in the evening, the closer to bedtime, the better.

• Drink a nightcap of some kind. Not so much that you will get up and pee throughout the night, but just enough to jumpstart your bladder for the morning.

• Drink coffee immediately after waking up, the stronger the better.

• Go easy on the water for a bit.

Then when you finally do go pee, you will be gifted with a new power that you did not know you had within you.

As always, I love you guys, and I’ll hop into your inboxes soon. Hope you have a good week, and happy peeing.