Everyone love barbecue, right? Whether it’s the grilled meat and luscious sides, or the jackfruit if you’re not into meat, the smells, sight, and taste of BBQ remind us of good times and good people, and satisfy some deep cravings in our souls. But some people bear a deep burden when consuming the greatness that is BBQ. Gas. Flatulence, burping, pain, that great uncomfortable feeling that something’s not quite right. We feel for them as they enjoy the deliciousness going down, knowing they will pay for it in the future.
Gas from eating Barbecue could come from what you eat, how you’ve eaten it, how it’s been cooked, or that your body simply has an intolerance to one of the foods you’ve eaten.
Now, I’m not a doctor, and this isn’t medical advice, but after doing some reading I’ve identified a few things that might help – or might be hurting. Let’s explore some of the reasons that you might get gas from barbecue. Of note, barbecue means different things to different people, depending on where you are and where you grew up. If some of the examples used below make you say “that’s not BBQ!” remember that barbecue is a combination of proteins and carbohydrates in delicious combinations – and while you might not enjoy that exact form of barbecue, the same factors will translate into your preferred version.
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It Could Be What You Eat
All sorts of food are known to be common causes of gas when consumed (and especially when over-consumed.) You might have gas from any of the following common foods, especially if you don’t normally consume them as part of your day to day diet but do include them in your BBQ. Onions and garlic, spices, beans, cruciferous vegetables (kale, brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower), beer or pop/soda (or any carbonated beverage), artificial flavoring, and MSG are all flatulence-inducing, and delicious parts of barbecue dinners and their traditional sides.
Consider the possible changes to your diet when you eat outside that you might not see inside
- If you normally consume wine or spirits, but switch to beer when getting together in the backyard it could be the carbonation that is puffing you up.
- If you don’t normally eat beans, but add bean dip or bean salad to your barbecue you could associate gas with the barbecue when it’s the beans getting you down.
- If you don’t normally eat onions, but fry up onions and mushrooms for your burgers it could make your insides rumble.
- That extra special BBQ sauce might contain a flavoring (or MSG!) that just doesn’t sit well with you!
Gas may also be caused by the type of meat that you’re eating. Fatty cuts of meat can have a hard time digesting (or take a long time to digest), and the combination with the other foods you’re eating at the BBQ could cause some distress. If BBQ is causing you gas, consider trying to switch up the cut of meat that you’re using to a leaner version to see if that helps.
That also leads us into the next reason that you may be experiencing gas at a BBQ – you ate it in the wrong way!
It Could Be How You Eat It
How can you eat food in the wrong way? Seriously!
Actually, there are a couple of ways that you might be eating that could cause you to become gassy. The first could actually be encountered at any meal, but something about eating outside, standing up, chatting, rushing to get to that next game might be what’s causing it to pop up – you might be eating to quickly and not chewing enough.
We won’t spend a lot of time on this, since it’s something you can easily monitor, but consider that maybe at a BBQ or when eating BBQ the act of eating is just a little bit different from how you would normally eat. You might be standing up. You might be eating with your hands instead of a knife and fork. You might be enjoying it so much that you wolf it down as quickly as you can to get to the next one! If any of that applies, try eating a bit slower, and really masticating (chewing your food) to see if that helps.
The other really strange thing that might be coming from how you eat your food could be how you’re combining your food. Your body eating is like a big hose starting at your mouth and working through to the other end, with a bag in the middle. If you eat something that takes a long time to digest first, it gets to the bottom of the bag and gets stuck while it’s being digested – and anything that’s a faster digester that gets eaten after gets stuck at the top of the bag – digesting quickly, and turning out gas that will bloat you up.
It sounds crazy, right? You’d think it would get all mixed up in your stomach and it wouldn’t be an issue, but it’s true that if you eat a large serving of meat – especially dense fatty meats – that take a long time to digest, and then immediately (or at the same time) eat a bunch of carbs – especially sugary or dense carbs – those carbs could start to ferment and create gas (the same way beer is made). If you do experience gas when you eat BBQ, try taking a break between your meat and your carbs (say, servings 15-20 minutes apart), and another break between the carbs and the dessert.
It Could Be Your Body Has An Intolerance
Sometimes you’re just unlucky. I have a friend that “gets the winds” as my wife’s grandmother would say every time he eats onion. It doesn’t matter how integrated they are – when onions go down, he bloats up.
If you’re experiencing gas when you eat BBQ, consider what goes into your typical BBQ meal and if there are food there that you normally don’t eat – and make sure that you include the spices and sauces that are part of the barbecue that don’t go on other food. As much as my friend can’t do onions, I have a similar but different problem with one of the spices that goes into most Indian and Caribbean food. If there is something that’s in your barbecue that your body just doesn’t like, it’s going to let you know about it one way or another.
MSG, food coloring, sugar alcohols, aspartame, gluten, sulfites, dairy (cheese please!), and spices such as onion, garlic, celery, tumeric, and mustard seed are all common foods that can cause intolerances and that you might find in sauces or toppings that you might only have during a cookout.
It Could Be How It’s Cooked
Fortunately, I don’t experience any problems in eating smoked meat. Indigestion for several other reasons, but smoke isn’t one of them! Some people report that if they use a specific kind of wood (hickory, or fruit tree wood) or a specific format (regular charcoal vs chunk vs pellet) it will give them indigestion or gas. If you’re having trouble with smoked meats and gas try changing up the type of fuel that you’re using for your smoke and the format of the fuel. Some people also report that switching to a gas smoker changes how they feel after eating smoked meats.
You might also find that the amount of smoke and the length of time that you smoke your meat impacts how much gas or indigestion you feel after eating. If you’re over-smoking your meat you may be taking in more compounds that your gut’s not happy with. If changing up the type and format of your smoke doesn’t help, try reducing the amount of smoke that you use.
Smoking/over smoking, grilling and charring (especially over a wood-based fire) can also introduce compounds that were in the fuel. Make sure your fuel is clean and clean-burning, and don’t light it with anything that risks addition additional compounds to the fuel (like a plastic bag or Styrofoam). Not only can that kind of garbage make you feel unwell, it can translate into other more serious illnesses down the road. If you don’t already, try using a charcoal chimney starter (at Amazon) – they are inexpensive and well worth it.
All Together Now
The daunting thing about an upset stomach after eating barbecue is that it might be more than on thing that’s causing your stomach to get up, and you to get down. If you’re dealing with food not sitting well, I’ve been told the best thing to do is break it down to basics, and then slowly build back up – so you might try some plain grilling or smoking, and then slowly adding back everything that you enjoy about BBQ until you find out what it is that is making you uncomfortable.
Because everyone deserves good barbecue.