Well, there's an interesting study published in May 2026 (Brindal & Baird) that set out to answer exactly this.

They managed to get over 6,400 everyday Australians to log their farts in real time using an app, recording when they let one go, plus its smell, loudness and duration.

And all in, they clocked more than 360,000 farts. That's a LOT of farts.

The results? They found the average person farted about 5 times a day.

Oh, and men farted more than women. Really? Or were the women just not being totally honest about how often they toot? Hmmmm 🤔

Now, before you take "5 a day" as gospel and start counting and comparing, here's where I think it gets interesting, because that number isn't the whole story.

Rewind to 1996. There’s an old study (Furne & Levitt) that had 25 healthy people keep a fart diary for a week. Their average came out at around 10 a day, with some hitting 20.

Jump ahead a couple of years to 1998 and there’s a paper by Bolin and Stanton who looked at not only how many farts but also fibre intake and beer!

They found men farted more than women (really?) – about 13 a day versus about 7 a day, with an overall average of about 10 farts per day like the 1996 study.

What about the fibre and beer then?

They found the more fibre people ate, the more they farted. I know the Carnivore crowd would be circling that sentence like hawks, but before you bin all your carbs, I’m going to come back to fibre in a bit, but you can also read this.

Regarding the beer intake, the men reported more fragrant farts than the women.

Then fast forward to 2025, and a study that automatically measured farts without relying on anyone to keep count or to honestly count their farts.

They basically had smart underpants. Farty pants. So no self-reporting, no forgetting, no rounding down out of embarrassment.

Just a machine counting as they bellowed or softly poofed out.

What did these researchers find? Thirty-two farts a day. And the spread was enormous, from as few as 4 to as many as 59.

By the way, that group was small and mostly men, so 32 isn't a clean average for everyone. Then again, since you're a guy, it might sit closer to your mark than the dainty 5.

Back in 1781, a 75 year old scientist wrote a letter to the Royal Academy proposing some research:

"…to discover some drug wholesome and not disagreable, to be mix'd with our common food, or sauces, that shall render the natural discharges of wind from our bodies, not only inoffensive, but agreable as perfumes." (By the way, that’s not my spelling mistakes but how his letter was written).

That scientist was Benjamin Franklin. I said I’d come back to him.

And yes, he was proposing to invent a pill to make farts smell nice. Instead of air fresheners, make your farts smell good.

Holding in farts is uncomfortable and can be painful. Franklin notes (and no, I don’t mean $100 bills 🤪 ):

"…That all well-bred people therefore, to avoid giving such offence, forcibly restrain the efforts of nature to discharge that wind. That so retain’d contrary to nature, it not only gives frequently great present pain…"

Whereas if you could take something to make your farts smell nice:

“…the ease and comfort every man living might feel seven times a day, by discharging freely the wind from his bowels? Especially if it be converted into a perfume…”

So Mr Franklin reckons 7 times a day then. So is it 5, 7, 10 or 32 farts a day?

And the man clearly had wit and a sense of humour, dad jokes and all. He pointed out that you can change the smell of your pee by eating asparagus and that a bloke who's eaten a load of onions "…shall … afford a stink that no company can tolerate…".

So his logic was if food can change how we smell, then surely we could find something to make our farts smell nice.

He even mentions about choosing a scent to suit the preferences of those around you! Rose for the in-laws, maybe.

But making your farts smell nice is more about the impact on other people, which is a nice thing to consider. But what’s more important, is you.

So it’s whether your farting is bothering you and having a negative impact on your morale, your confidence, and your quality of life.
​

That Australian study also mapped farts across the day. Obviously nothing got logged overnight, because everyone was asleep. Although, have you ever farted so hard or loud you woke yourself up?! 🤪

Their chart shows there’s two main peaks. A smaller one first thing, around 6 to 8am, and a bigger one in the evening, around 8 to 10pm.

The morning one is your gut at its most active, overnight backlog clearing out, helped by that first coffee or breakfast firing things up.

The evening one is your gut at its most full, a whole day's food has now arrived in your large intestine for the bacteria to work on, topped off with the last clear-out before bed.

Either way, the gas isn't from the meal you've just eaten, that takes hours to get there. Which is where most guys go wrong, and why I made this.

The two main sources are the air you swallow, and fermentation. Fermentation? -think of when they’re brewing beer and there’s all those bubbles and froth.

The swallowed air is the minor player, at least for farts. Eat fast, talk with your mouth full, chew gum or guzzle fizzy drinks and you gulp down air. Some of it comes back up as burps, and some travels south and contributes to what comes out the other end.

It's fermentation that does the heavy lifting, and that's the bit that changes with what you eat.

Down in your large intestine you've got trillions of gut bacteria (and other bugs), and their job is to feast on the bits of food your body couldn't digest and absorb higher up – mostly undigested carbohydrates (plus some protein and fat).

As they ferment those leftovers, they produce gas.

So how gassy you are depends on what you eat, how much and what your gut microbiome is like (the community of trillions of bacteria, viruses and fungi that live in your gut).

Which is why one guy can be far gassier than the next on the same meal.

But here’s the thing, if you’ve got something called SIBO (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth), where you get too many bacteria setting up shop in the small intestine, higher up than they should be, then that means fermentation kicks off too early, which can cause gut symptoms that look a lot like IBS.

In more extreme SIBO cases it can come with signs and symptoms like greasy, pale, floating poo, weight loss and anaemia, which is your cue to see a doctor rather than tough it out.

More than 99% of the gas your gut bacteria produce (hydrogen, carbon dioxide and methane), is odourless. Which you might find surprising, because why do some farts absolutely stink?

The stink comes from sulphur-containing gases, made when your gut bacteria break down (ferment) the sulphur-rich parts of protein (two amino acids called cysteine and methionine). Break those down and you get that lovely rotten-eggy-cabbage whiff.

So what foods are rich in those sulphur-containing compounds?

Red meat and eggs. But the real driver isn’t one villain food, it’s the total amount you have. And the more sulphur-rich protein you put away, the more for your bacteria to turn into smelly gas.

A lot of guys that are into their fitness, especially weight training, pack away serious protein like chicken, steak, eggs, and most tan protein supplements as well.

And guys that are trying to drop the calories load up on protein as well, to help maintain muscle mass and stay feeling fuller for longer (Roberts et al., 2020).

Either way, a high protein diet can lead to more protein ending up in the large intestine to be fermented… and smellier farts.

Research has shown that about 3g protein per day can end up in the large intestine on a low protein diet compared to 12-18g per day from normal, average dietary intake having about 18% of total daily calories from protein (Yao et al., 2016).

So imagine how much potentially ends up in the large intestine if you’re having between 1.6-2.7g or more per Kg per day which could be about 20-30+% of total calorie intake.

...Or what about if you’re following the Carnivore diet!

So yes, “protein farts” are a real thing not just a “bro science” thing.

And to make matters worse, going high protein and cutting the fibre, whether that’s for your sport, you’ve gone Carnivore, or you think fibre is the devil when trying to manage your IBS, leaves your gut bacteria nothing to feed on except protein.

It’s not only protein either, because some wine and beer contains certain additives that can also turn into stinky farts, which is why the beer drinkers in that 1998 study reported some funky farts.

Those sulphur compounds are also found in some veggies like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, Brussels sprouts, garlic, onion, and leeks.

So Franklin was onto something all those years ago when he linked diet to odour.

But before you ditch those veggies, their rotten eggy-cabbage smell potential is less than the high protein foods, and they contain a variety of different nutrients including different amounts and types of fibre which provides a range of health benefits such as reducing the risk of bowel cancer and Type 2 diabetes.

So if it's the smell that bothers you more than the frequency, look at the protein, including the shakes, before you start blaming the veggies.

Now here’s a twist.

There's research (Yao et al., 2016) suggesting that increasing your fibre intake can actually help with smelly farts, by keeping your gut bacteria busy on their preferred food (fibre) so they're less likely to ferment the sulphur-rich protein.

So while more fibre tends to mean more frequent farts, the evidence suggests it can make them smell less offensive.

It's not as simple as "eat more fibre".

First, fibre and fermentable carbs aren't the same thing, and it's the fast-fermenting carbs, scattered across veggies, wholegrains, beans, pulses and some fruits (including those same sulphur-rich veggies from earlier), that tend to set off IBS symptoms.

But it's not only those.

The amount, type and timing of fibre is important as well.

Suddenly start tanning shedloads of fibre, or eat a big high-fibre meal right before you train, and you can end up bloated, gassy or running for the loo whether you've got IBS or not, it’s just that a sensitive gut has a lower threshold.

And variety is key, not just the number.

You could hit the UK's 30g-a-day fibre target with a supplement and still miss the point. Because different gut bugs thrive on different plant foods and do different jobs, so a wider range of plants tends to mean a more varied, more resilient microbiome.

That's where the "eat 30 different plants a week" idea comes from, the American Gut Project (McDonald et al., 2018), which found people eating 30+ different plants a week had more diverse gut microbiomes than those eating fewer than 10.

Treat 30 as a handy target, not a magic number, plus bear in mind that it came from comparing a small group at each extreme, not hard proof.

So you can't just cram in 30 plants and hope for the best.

It's a balancing act between getting enough variety for the health benefits, but at a pace, in a mix, and at times your gut can actually handle, while working within your own personal triggers (if you even know them yet).

And everyone's different – your body, your IBS triggers, and your gut microbiome is as unique as your fingerprints. Which is exactly why guesswork rarely cracks it.

If you don't know whether it's the protein, the veg, the fibre, the carbs, all of them, or something else entirely, a Dietitian can help.

Keep a food and symptom diary, share it with the Dietitian, and they can go through everything with you to identify the actual culprit(s), while also making sure you're still getting everything your body needs based on your own personal requirements.

Loads of things, and often it’s more than one thing at a time. The usual suspects:

Quick but important note: If you think your excessive gas is due to a medication, don’t just stop taking it off your own back. Have a chat with your GP or pharmacist first.
​

Anne Hathaway farts. Emily Blunt farts. I know, yes, it ruins the image a bit. But everyone does it. It’s natural.

Ever seen that film The Change-Up, with Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman, where the two of them magically swap bodies?

Well, Reynolds' character Mitch is a single guy who’s mates with Bateman's married character Dave. And he reckons he's finally got his shot with Dave's missus. He's well up for it, letching at her as she’s walking through the bedroom naked, saying “I’m going to ruin her.” … that’s right up until she wanders to the bathroom, grabs on her silk dressing gown, leaves the door open, plonks herself on the pan and lets it alllll out.

Image. Ruined.

Maybe. But it's normal. Everyone does it.

It mostly depends on what you’re eating. On average it’s about 600mL per day (Bloom et al., 2022). On a diet low in fermentable compounds it can be less than 300mL (Kalantar- Zadeh et al., 2019), but load up on say a big plate of baked beans and this can jump up to 1.5L or more (Kalantar- Zadeh et al., 2019; Tomlin et al., 1991).

Here's something that surprises a lot of my clients…

People with IBS don't necessarily produce more gas than anyone else.

The problem isn't the amount.

It's sensitivity.

In IBS, the gut is hypersensitive, so a perfectly normal volume of gas, and perfectly normal gut movement, gets dialled up and registers as pain, bloating or cramping.

Good research backs this up (Major et al., 2017) showing it's this oversensitivity to stretch, rather than excessive gas production, that causes the symptoms.

And your head is in the mix too. Not that it’s all in your head like you’re imaging it or making it up. But that stress and anxiety can genuinely crank up gut symptoms through the gut-brain connection.

That smart underwear study threw up a fascinating clue here...

The researchers gave people a sweet made from simple sugars that your gut absorbs high up, so barely any reaches the large intestine to be fermented by the bacteria. So wouldn’t cause any gas or symptoms.

But… a third of people still reported symptoms!

That points to something called the nocebo effect. This is basically the opposite of placebo where you feel better say, because you believed or expected to.
​

Here's something a lot of guys get backwards.

Getting active is one of the best things you can do for shifting trapped gas and bloating.

When you’re up and active, gas travels through and out.

When you sit around, it hangs about and builds up, leaving you bloated and uncomfortable (Dainese et al., 2004; Villoria et al., 2006).

In one study, healthy men who were kept inactive for over a month ended up farting more and pooing less (Iovino et al., 2013).

So sitting about most of the time, like if your job requires you to sit on ya butt all day isn’t helpful for your gut (or your overall health).

So when you're bloated or gassy, get moving – not cruise on the couch. Even a brisk walk can help to shift things along and lets you ‘deflate’.

There's one catch, and it's about how hard you train.

Gentle to moderate activity helps. But going full pelt, an all-out session, can tip things the other way and cause cramping or a sudden dash to the loo.

During higher intensity exercise, your body diverts blood away from your gut and sends it to your working muscles, leaving your gut short-changed, which is when the cramping and urgency kick in (Costa et al., 2017).

So it’s not a case of "go easy", it's just don't be surprised if flat-out sessions upsets your gut, while more gentler training and walks are doing it a favour.

A few things that help:

First of all, if you need to fart, fart.

Don’t hold it in because like Franklin said “…That so retain’d contrary to nature, it not only gives frequently great present pain…” and as you’ll know yourself, it can end up painful. Yeah, you can have manners about it, like holding off until you’re in the bathroom rather than right next to your wife while you’re having your dinner.

Practical, evidence-based stuff you can start today:

And a word on the low FODMAP diet, because it comes up a lot.

It can be genuinely powerful for IBS, but it is not a forever diet and it's not a DIY guessing game. If you’re doing it by yourself or you’re considering doing it then you need to read this.
​

Most farting is nothing to worry about. You might not like the smell of your own farts and other people might find them offensive, but smelly farts aren’t automatically a cause for concern.

But book an appointment if:

So, how many farts a day is normal? Honestly, there isn't a magic number.

Somewhere in the region of 5 to 20 covers most people, but the range is big and the studies don't fully agree partly because each has its own limitations.

What actually matters is what's normal for you, and whether it turns up with pain, bloating, or the kind of gut chaos that's quietly stealing your confidence and knackering your training.

If that's you, here's the good news: You don't have to keep running experiments on your own body, cutting out foods at random and hoping. Working out what your gut can genuinely handle, without gutting your diet or your performance in the process, is exactly what a dietitian does. It's our job.

Franklin wanted a pill to make the problem smell nicer. Turns out the better answer is understanding your own gut. Less romantic, far more useful.

​

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