I'M ALL STOPPED UP
    One theory to Elvis Presley's death is that he died of constipation. He may have suffered from hirschsprung disease where nerves are not fully developed throughout the colon. This causes a muscle deficiency in the gut and the excrement has to built up enough until things are forced through. As a result the colon becomes over stretched and damaged. The new mega colon can push other organs upward and outward to the point where taking a deep breath could be difficult. Presley was most likely to have died when he was defecating due to long breath hold and sudden intake of air. His heart, which wasn't healthy to begin with, withstood too much strain and he died.

THE ICK FACTOR 

     The final chapter of Gulp was all about people's disdain towards unsavory subjects and its effects. There
is a procedure, fecal transplants, that may seem gross, but at the same time saves lives. Fecal transplants are the cheapest and most effective way to treat diseases caused by the bacteria (or lack of) in the colon. The gross part of this procedure would be the "fecal" part. Basically, you have inserted another person's poop into your colon to introduce new bacteria. However revolting it may seem, it can dramatically change lives. It is this same revolution, though, that prevents insurance companies from accepting the sugary and new studies to be approved. The ironic part is that we were originally just a gut or alimentary canal and developed from there.

SMELLING A RAT
     Apparently flatulence (hydrogen sulfate) can kill, well in large quantities at least. It can be as lethal as cyanide if amplified by about one thousand. Hydrogen sulfate in such quantities can be found in some sewers and manure pits can cause suffocation. Hydrogen sulfate is a stealthy killer. Where its rotten egg smell can be painfully obvious at ten parts per million, any amount over one hundred fifty parts per million and it becomes unrecognizable because your olfactory nerves are paralyzed.

EATING BACKWARD
     The idea of of feeding "backward" or through rectum and other unsavory methods doesn't seem appealing, but is it even possible? The answer is questionable. One such way to accomplish backward feeding (although exceedingly outdated) is through "nutrient enemas." The basic idea is to deliver food to the colon through the rectum to be absorbed. The problem with this is that the colon isn't meant to absorb such things and often can't absorb a lot of what is needed to support a body. Another way of feeding backwards is something that animals like rabbits and mice do, eat their own excrete. This method however is actually effective for the animals because they revive essential vitamins and fatty acids manufactured by the bacteria inside their colon from the waste. Just picture the feces as a self made vitamin pill.

UP THEIRS
     Smuggling is no stranger to prisons. One way to do this is through a persons body, mainly through the digestive tract. Two ways of doing this is hooping (holding objects in the anus) and swallowing the objects. While swallowing can lead to overdose while smuggling drugs, hooping can be very uncomfortable because they have to hold it for long periods of time and doesn't last as long.

INFLAMMABLE YOU
     When we are digesting food, we create flammable gasses, namely hydrogen and methane. However, if we are near a flame and passing gas, it can ignite. This can also happen when belching if your food stays in your stomach for an abnormally long period. A glimpse of the origins of dragons was also gained in this chapter. One of the theories is that it was a snake that "breathed fire." This could happen if hunter in early times had collected a dead snake that was digesting an animal and placed it by a fire. If the snake's body was pressured at the right moment, a release of inflammable gasses would come from the digested animal inside the snakes belly and caught fire, creating the idea of a fire breathing reptile the dragon.

     Dragofyre7. Fire-breathing Dragon. Digital image. Http://dragofyre7.deviantart.com/. DeviantART, 18 May 2004. Web. 16 Aug. 2013.

DEAD MAN'S BLOAT
       It is commonly know that beans can produce more flatulence in a person than other foods. This happens because they contain certain complex carbohydrates known as oligosaccharides which are found in legumes. Your small intestine has trouble absorbing the carbohydrates, so they are passed on tho the colon where bacteria break them down and produces hydrogen in the process. This can also happen with dairy products when people lose the enzyme that breaks down lactose, a sugar found in milk.

BIG GULP
     In this chapter the idea of (non-parasitic) animals surviving within a stomach was explored. This idea may have been sparked early on in 1896 by the story of a man being swallowed by a whale and then found intact and alive later in the whale's stomach. Other stories of such incidents include people's thoughts that reptiles were living inside their stomachs. It turns, not surprisingly, that it is nearly impossible for animals to survive in other's stomachs for very long. If a human were to be swallowed by a whale, he would be crushed as a form of the whale "chewing" with its mussels due to that it swallows its food whole. The reptiles, on the other hand, would be dissolved by our own gastric fluids and couldn't survive for long.

DINNER'S REVENGE
    Similar to the last chapter this one analyzes again (non-parasitic) animals in the stomach. This time, it was taken one step farther through the claim that the animals could eat their way out of the stomach they were in. This idea went through many experiments and was discarded as the truth came to light.

STUFFED
     Can you eat your self to death? It is very hard to since your stomach has natural prevention put in place. First, there is the full feeling, then stomach pain, and lastly regurgitation. It is possible for your stomach to burst if you cannot get rid of the excess food. This happens when a person is drugged and also when they are hit by a sudden impact. It is exceedingly rare for someone to "eat themselves to death" without those causes, but it can happen. This usually happens when gas creating substances like baking soda or alkazelser are introduced to the already full capacity stomach and acts too quickly for the body to react.

SPIT GETS A POLISH
     Saliva is more than just a lubricant for your food. One other use of saliva is to protect your teeth. It rushes to dilute acidic food like vinegar and soda that eats away at your enamel. Saliva is also good for healing. It, ironically, is a disinfectant due to its anti clumping component that disallows bacteria to accumulate and also helps to heal skin faster through histatints. Another point explored in this chapter is the grossness of our bodily parts when not part of the body. We can easily swallow spit when it is in our mouths, but when it is outside it is almost as disgusting as swallowing a strangers. However, the reach of disgust does not apply to those we love, which explains why people can kiss without getting completely grossed out all the time.

A BOLUS OF CHERRIES
      In this chapter another sense is brought to the flavor scene. Hearing can also play a part in tasting. For example, we like to eat things that are crunchy. It turns out that we judge the "crunchiness" of something mostly by our ears. The science behind why we like our crisp fruit and our crackling chips is because it is an indicator of freshness.

LIVER AND OPINIONS
     As shown in this chapter, changing eating habits is not an easy task. During WW2, due to U.S. rationing, while there was little muscle meat (everyday american meat) to go around, organ meats were in abundance. Organ meats were also very healthy for you with plenty of vitamins. The only problem?-getting people to eat them. Americans were not accustomed to much organ meat and didn't embrace it freely leaving the american government struggling to find ways to get it accepted. One reason we eat one thing and not another is simply culture. By the age of ten we are accustomed to eating the things that others eat around us.

THE LONGEST MEAL
     Chew more- that was Horace Fletcher's message. Claiming that it could cut the amount of nutrients needed by one-half and in turn the national spending on food. But, besides the fact that chewing until liquidation is not exactly enjoyable, Martin Stocks (developer of the modern gut model) states that it makes little overall difference in the body. This may be due to the fact that the human digestive tract is designed to extract the maximum amount of nutrition from the food it's given naturally and doesn't need extensive help from the teeth or jaw mussels. One thing that is helpful about through (but not to the Fletcher extent) chewing is that is slows the consumer down, which is helpful when trying to lose weight.

HARD TO STOMACH
     This chapter tells the story of William Beaumont and Alexis St. Martin. The relationship of the two men was simple: scientist and test subject. Beaumont would observe the inner workings of St. Martin's stomach through a sizable hole. St. Martin had sustained this hole through a duck hunting indecent and was operated on by Beaumont. Beaumont realized the potential in St. Martin's situation and later proposed to him the ideas he had in mind for St. Martin. Many experiments ensued most of them unpleasant for St. Martin, and occasionally for Beaumont (I would imagine that tasting predigested chicken would be anything but fun). It is clear that the men had some sort of intimate relationship, but of course how could they not after living together for a decade. Then again, it was also clear that Beaumont also looked down upon St. Martin partly due to the differences in class, and partly because Beaumont saw St. Martin as more of a body than a man. Overall, not all that much new information was taken from all those years of work.

Citation:
 Bettmann, Otto, Dr. :Illustration depicting Dr. William Beaumont (1785-1853) experimenting with digestive juice by tapping a fistule into the stomach of Alexis St. Martin. Undated colored drawing. Digital image. Http://www.corbisimages.com. Corbis Corporation, n.d. Web. 13 Aug. 2013.

C

Back To The Book

Prologue
     Mary starts off the book talking about her own beginnings discovering the digestive track. She recalls the experience of her curiosity at her first exposure to the system in fifth grade through a plastic model. She goes on to describe the track in much detail and through the use of many metaphors, comparing the "farthest reaches of the digestive track" to a "waste management facility" (17 Roach). She ends the prologue by directly telling the readers what she wants them to get from the book- a voluntary education and a sparked interest.

NOSE JOB
     In this chapter Mary outlines the importance of smell to taste. I personally experience with this idea previously through experiment at a children's museum (to be fallowed up by some of my own) where we were to eat something without smell and then repeating with it. It did in fact change the intensity of flavor. Mary also introduces the industry of refined smell and tasting in olive oil and alcohol world. A fact that I find very interesting is that more expensive wines may taste worse than less expensive ones, but are still thought to be better because of their price. This fact shows how our opinions may be based on ego instead of genuine quality.

I'LL HAVE THE PUTRESCINE
     The second chapter is about pet food and focuses on the conflict between what owners want and what pets want. This is mostly due to the owner's assumption that the pets are like them, when they really aren't. One example is cat's food. Owners may believe that cats like a variety of food just like humans, but in actuality, they like to only stick to one taste or  food. One way to solve this though is palatants. They are the flavored compounds that let the animal willingly eat anything. Again, smell is brought into the picture, especially for the dogs.

On The Author:

Mary Roach has a very excited approach to the the subjects she writes about, her pure intrigue reflects that of a kid in a candy store, but instead of candy it's internal organs and the science of the human body. It is refreshing the read her work as her approach to the content relays unto her readers.  The sparked interest that urges readers to continue comes from not what she writes about, but how she writes it. Her power as a writer that can make almost anything interesting comes from her voice. Reading her book is like being told a story by an enthusiastic friend (with a sarcastic sense of humor).

This is a picture of Mary Roach taken by me from the book