Causes and How to Manage It
You may see undigested food in your stool for a number of reasons. These could be as simple as not chewing your food enough, but it can also happen as a result of some medical conditions, says Mikhail Yakubov, MD, a gastroenterologist in New York City.
High-Fiber Foods
Fiber is an important nutrient for healthy digestion, cholesterol, blood pressure, and weight maintenance. But as mentioned, the digestive tract can’t fully break down fiber-rich foods, which is why pieces of food can come out intact.
“High-fiber foods like corn, nuts, seeds, and vegetable skins contain cellulose, which your body doesn’t fully digest,” says Dr. Yakubov. Kale, beans, and apple skins may also appear in bowel movements, Dr. Sprung adds.
Eating Too Fast
When you eat quickly, you might skimp on chewing — an important first step in the digestion process. Your stomach can’t break down larger chunks of food as easily as smaller ones, so fast eaters may see more undigested food in the toilet.
Rapid Digestion
Typically, food takes 24 to 48 hours to travel through your gastrointestinal (GI) tract.
But sometimes your digestive system may move things along a little too fast, says Yakubov. “[This] can happen if you’re dealing with diarrhea, stress, or conditions like irritable bowel syndrome,” he adds.
Certain Health Conditions
In most cases, undigested food in stool on its own is completely harmless. In other cases, especially if you’re having other symptoms like vomiting or diarrhea, undigested food in your stool could be a sign that your body isn’t absorbing nutrients well, says Yakubov. “This can happen with conditions like celiac disease, inflammatory bowel disease, or pancreatic insufficiency.”
Health conditions that could keep your body from digesting food well include:
- Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which includes conditions like Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, causes inflammation and swelling in your digestive tract, which makes digesting food and absorbing nutrients difficult.
- Pancreatic insufficiency, which means you don’t have enough digestive enzymes (natural digestive chemicals in the body) to break down the food you eat.
- Celiac disease, which triggers your immune system to reject a protein called gluten, found in foods like wheat. This causes an inflammatory reaction in your gut that disrupts digestion.
- Dumping syndrome, which causes your stomach to empty too quickly into your small intestine before food can be properly broken down.
- Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), which involves hypersensitivity of the GI tract nerves, causing pain and diarrhea.
- Lactose intolerance, which means your body doesn’t digest lactose-containing dairy products well. When you consume them, it leads to digestive distress and disruption.
- Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), which causes an unusual increase in certain bacteria in your GI tract. This can affect how well you absorb nutrients from food.
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