One of my hometown’s claims-to-fame, aside from the magnificence of the Clifton Suspension Bridge, is being the birthplace of the mighty Bristol Stool Chart.
This seven category scale, developed at Bristol Royal Infirmary, categorises poo across a spectrum – from hard pellets like rabbit droppings to brown water. According to the chart, the ideal stool is a mid-range type 4: “like a sausage, smooth and soft”.
Smashing.
An early noughties TV programme on UK’s Channel 4 featured a nutritionist who examined faecal samples in order to comment on people’s health, looking at consistency, colour and smell. All I can say is that Channel 4 must have been paying her a significant wage to undergo that ordeal. Still, she was on to something.
While there’s no need for dissection of your own faecal matter, there’s no doubt that the colour and consistency of what’s in the toilet pan or on the paper can give important information about the state of your health.
The average healthy poo is, of course, brown. In case you’ve ever wondered, it’s the bile secreted by the liver into your intestines that stains faeces that fetching shade of burnt umber.
Stools are made up of indigestible material that cannot be absorbed into the bloodstream. This includes a solid........