Passing gas between 14 and 23 times a day is completely normal. If you’re consistently above that range, or the frequency has recently increased, the cause almost always traces back to what you’re eating, how you’re eating, or how your gut bacteria are processing it all. Rarely, it signals something that needs medical attention.
What Counts as “Too Much”
Most people have no idea how often they pass gas because a large portion of it happens unnoticed, especially during sleep. The 14-to-23 range covers healthy adults eating a typical mixed diet. Going above 23 times a day, particularly if it comes with bloating, cramping, or changes in your stool, is worth paying attention to. But exceeding that number on a day you ate a big bean chili doesn’t mean something is wrong. The pattern over days and weeks matters more than any single day.
Foods That Produce the Most Gas
The biggest driver of excessive gas is a group of short-chain carbohydrates sometimes called FODMAPs, found in a wide variety of common foods: beans, lentils, onions, garlic, wheat, apples, pears, milk, and certain sweeteners like sorbitol and xylitol. Your small intestine can’t fully break these carbohydrates down on its own, so it draws in extra water to push them along to the large intestine. Once they arrive, the bacteria living in your colon ferment them, producing gas and fatty acids as byproducts. The more of these foods you eat, the more raw material your gut bacteria have to work with.
Cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and Brussels sprouts are another well-known category. High-fiber foods in general increase gas production, which is why people who suddenly switch to a “healthier” diet often notice a dramatic uptick in flatulence. The gut microbiome adapts over a few weeks, and gas production typically settles down if you increase fiber gradually rather than all at once.
Swallowed Air Adds Up Fast
Not all gas is produced inside your gut. A surprising amount of it comes from air you swallow throughout the day, a process called aerophagia. Common culprits include eating too fast, talking while eating, chewing gum, sucking on hard candy, drinking through straws, and consuming carbonated beverages. Smoking also increases air swallowing.
Certain medical situations make this worse. Loose-fitting dentures cause your mouth to produce more saliva, which means more swallowing and more air intake. Stress and anxiety can create a nervous swallowing habit you may not even notice. People who use a CPAP machine for sleep apnea sometimes experience aerophagia because the machine delivers more air than the body can easily process. If your gas tends to come out as burping rather than flatulence, swallowed air is a likely contributor, though some of it travels all the way through and exits the other end.
Why Some Gas Smells Worse Than Others
Most intestinal gas is odorless, composed mainly of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and methane. The smell comes from a small fraction of the total volume: sulfur-containing gases, primarily hydrogen sulfide, the compound responsible for that rotten-egg odor. Certain gut bacteria generate hydrogen sulfide by breaking down sulfur-containing amino acids found in protein-rich foods like eggs, meat, cheese, and cruciferous vegetables. Another group of bacteria produces it by processing sulfate, a compound naturally present in various foods and drinking water.
So if the volume of your gas hasn’t changed but the smell has gotten worse, think about whether you’ve recently increased your protein intake, started eating more eggs or broccoli, or changed your diet in a way that feeds sulfur-processing bacteria. Reducing high-sulfur foods for a week or two is a simple way to test this.
Food Intolerances as a Hidden Cause
Lactose intolerance is one of the most common reasons people notice excessive, uncomfortable gas. When your body doesn’t produce enough of the enzyme that breaks down lactose (the sugar in dairy), it passes undigested into the colon, where bacteria ferment it aggressively. Symptoms typically begin within a few hours of eating or drinking dairy. This is worth considering even if you’ve consumed dairy your whole life, because lactase production naturally declines with age in a large percentage of the global population.
Fructose malabsorption works similarly. If your small intestine can’t absorb fructose efficiently, high-fructose foods like apples, honey, agave, and products sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup will produce excess gas. Gluten sensitivity (distinct from celiac disease) can also cause increased flatulence in some people, though bloating and changes in stool are usually more prominent symptoms. The simplest way to identify a food intolerance is an elimination trial: remove the suspected food for two to three weeks, then reintroduce it and see if symptoms return.
Medications and Supplements
Several common over-the-counter and prescription products list gas as a side effect. These include aspirin, antacids, opioid pain medications, anti-diarrheal drugs, fiber supplements like psyllium, multivitamins, and iron pills. If your gas increased around the time you started a new medication or supplement, that connection is worth exploring with your pharmacist or doctor. Iron supplements are particularly notorious for causing both gas and constipation.
What Actually Helps Reduce Gas
The most effective first step is identifying which foods are driving your gas production. Keeping a simple food diary for one to two weeks, noting what you ate and when symptoms were worst, often reveals a pattern. From there, you can selectively reduce the biggest offenders rather than overhauling your entire diet.
For swallowed air, the fixes are behavioral: slow down when eating, avoid chewing gum and drinking through straws, cut back on carbonated drinks, and eat with your mouth closed. These changes can make a noticeable difference within days.
When it comes to over-the-counter remedies, enzyme-based supplements that break down fermentable carbohydrates (the type sold for use before eating beans or other high-FODMAP foods) have solid evidence behind them. In a controlled trial, patients taking these enzymes showed significant improvement in bloating and gas compared to those taking a placebo. Simethicone, the active ingredient in many popular anti-gas products, is a different story. Despite its widespread use, studies have not shown a benefit for ordinary flatulence. It works by breaking up gas bubbles, which may help with the sensation of bloating, but it doesn’t reduce gas production itself.
For lactose intolerance specifically, lactase enzyme tablets taken before consuming dairy can prevent symptoms. Many people also find that fermented dairy products like yogurt and aged cheeses are tolerable because the fermentation process has already broken down much of the lactose.
Signs That Something More Serious Is Going On
Excessive gas by itself, without other symptoms, is almost never a sign of a dangerous condition. But gas paired with certain other symptoms deserves medical evaluation: unintentional weight loss, blood in the stool, persistent diarrhea or constipation that represents a change from your normal pattern, ongoing vomiting, or heartburn that accompanies the gas. These combinations can point to conditions like celiac disease, inflammatory bowel disease, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), or, less commonly, colorectal issues that need investigation. If your gas is severe, persistent, and not responding to dietary changes over several weeks, that alone is a reasonable reason to bring it up with a healthcare provider.