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Flaming Farts Or A Bunch Of Hot Air Podcast Episode

Flaming Farts or the light farts on fire myth: we’re breaking wind on all those funny fart facts, including how often you fart, why farting is good for you, what makes farts smell when you pass gas, and that non-stop party discussion topic: can you light farts on fire (that ole pyroflatulence trick).

Flaming Farts Or A Bunch Of Hot Air Podcast Episode

Where to listen to the Flaming Farts Or A Bunch Of Hot Air Podcast Episode

DISCLAIMER: If you’re wondering is fart lighting dangerous, the answer is YES. DO NOT TRY THIS. (Parents: you may want to preview this episode so your kids don’t get any ideas!)

SEE ALL PLACES YOU CAN LISTEN TO OUR FAMILY-FRIENDLY PODCAST (that aren’t all about farts)

SEE ALL PARENT BUSTERS EPISODES

Learning About How To Light Farts On Fire (or not) and More!

Want to add farting myths and facts to your learning with kids (because, who doesn’t)?

Highlights and Fact Corrections of the Farting Podcast:

*Gas-tight mylar pantaloons:

Ella mentions a farting study that used “gas-tight mylar pantaloons.” Pantaloons is type of pants that fit from the waist all the way down to the ankle. (SEE OLD FASHIONED TYPE PANTALOONS HERE) Mylar is a foil-looking polyester film (if you’ve ever seen those disposable emergency blankets, those are it!).

So gas-tight mylar pantaloons are fitted trousers made of that foil-like material… and trapped farts in. [insert appropriate eye-rolling here]

*How much methane do cow farts actually have?

We mentioned cow farts and flammable methane, but how much do cows actually fart?

Turns out? Cow “farts” are actually BURPS.

According to Iowa Farm Bureau:

“Cows actually burp out methane as their complex ruminant digestive systems break down plant materials, explains Dr. Sara Place, an animal scientist with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.”

*Why is your first fart the biggest fart of the day?

We didn’t have the answer to this in podcast, but we looked it up!

According to The Sleep Foundation:

“People commonly fart in their sleep, although they usually are not aware of it. Research suggests pressure in the anal sphincter muscle fluctuates in cycles throughout the day. This muscle is more relaxed during sleep, and it controls whether or not gas present in the large intestine is released. This muscle also spontaneously relaxes multiple times per hour in the morning. As a result, passing gas overnight or in the morning is common.”

*Do cats fart?

In the podcast, we mention our dogs farting (A LOT), but we weren’t sure about our cats farting…

According to WebMD:

“Cats do get gas. Like many other animals, a cat has gases inside its digestive tract, and this gas leaves the body via the rectum. Cats usually pass gas quietly and there isn’t much odor to it. “

*Do women really have a greater concentration of hydrogen sulfide in their farts than men, therefore making women’s farts smell worse?

According to Real Clear Science:

“In studies conducted by eminent flatulence researcher Michael Levitt, women’s farts consistently sported significantly greater concentrations of hydrogen sulfide. Odor judges have confirmed that — at similar volumes — this translates to a noticeably worse odor compared to men’s farts.”

Podcast Episode References and Resources

Flaming Farts Or A Bunch Of Hot Air Podcast Episode Transcript

*apologies, but I accidentally made all of the names Ella and couldn’t change it back (yep, total noob mistake)

Jackie: (00:00)
Hey parents, Jackie here. I just wanted to give you a little disclaimer about this episode. You may want to listen to it beforehand, just so your kids don’t get any weird ideas.

[sound effect]: (00:11)
Don’t try this at home.

Ella: (00:14)
Hello. I am Ella and I’m here with my mother, Jackie and welcome to parent. Buster is a fun podcast where parents and kids can learn about weird things together and where we talk about pyro flatulence, but it is not advised today. Our title is flaming fart or a bunch of hot air. And before we do anything else, we’re going to give you our two truths and a lie.

[sound effect]: (00:40)
Please hold for a very important message.

Ella: (00:43)
So two truths and a lie work like this. Each episode we start with. Yep. You guessed it. Two truths. And one line about the topic that we’re talking about for the day.

Ella: (00:54)
You guess, which two things are true and which one is a lie,

Ella: (00:57)
Then listen to the podcast and see if you can determine the truth. Two of them and one lie. Listen to the end because we’ll give you the answers.

Ella: (01:06)
Oh, and hey parents, if you haven’t already pause the podcast and head over to parent busters.com to download the free Buster deduction sheets that you can use with each podcast,

Ella: (01:17)
There’s a place on the sheets that you can write down the two truths and a lie for every topic. And guess your answers before you listen, and you can write down other fun things that you learned during the podcast.

Ella: (01:29)
It’s just another fun way that you learn together with your kids. Okay? So we’re gonna start off with our two truths and a lie. Are you ready? I’m ready. Okay.

Ella: (01:40)
I have to just say, you know how I feel about farts? That is not my favorite topic, but I’m ready

Ella: (01:48)
As you pretend you don’t fart. Cuz you’re a perfectionist.

Ella: (01:50)
Perfectionist moms. Don’t fart.

Ella: (01:52)
That’s true. Okay. It’s scientifically. No, that’s not. That’s not scientifically backed up.

Ella: (01:59)
We’re too exhausted to fart. That’s what it is.

Ella: (02:03)
I feel like that would happen more. Okay. Let’s get on with our teachers

Ella: (02:07)
And the lie, two truths and the lie. Let’s hear them.

Ella: (02:15)
Number one, your fart flame can be blue. Number two, number two. The scientific name for fart is pyro flatulence. And number three, your farts don’t always stink.

Ella: (02:33)
Okay. Interesting. So again, be sure to write those down on your deduction sheets. If you’re following, along with us that way, if not, you can just listen all the way to the end of the up episode and we’ll give you the answers there, but you’ll probably be able to figure out you’ll I feel like it’s gonna be like this, the whole episode. Yep. You’ll probably be able to figure out the answers before we even get to the end. So, uh, I have a joke for you.

Ella: (03:00)
Okay. And then I have a gross fact after.

Ella: (03:02)
Oh, which one should we do?

Ella: (03:04)
First joke.

Jackie: (03:06)
Okay. What do you call a fart fairy.

Ella: (03:09)
Oh no. What

Jackie: (03:11)
Stinker bell.

Ella: (03:13)
I thought it was gonna be like the poop fairy, like tooth fairy.

Ella: (03:16)
You know, what’s so bad about fart jokes.

Ella: (03:19)
They stink.

Ella: (03:20)
Really

Ella: (03:21)
Seriously, they just, They leave just the general fog around the area. Okay. Okay. I’m gonna lighten the mood with a fact.

Ella: (03:31)
Go ahead. Lighten the mood.

Ella: (03:33)
Lighten the mood, uh…

Ella: (03:35)
I don’t think it could get any lighter, but okay.

Ella: (03:38)
This is how mature we are. Um, did you know that the average person farts 10 to 20 times a day…

Ella: (03:49)
Not me, but…

Ella: (03:51)
I didn’t say mom,

Ella: (03:52)
I’m around you and your father. So I believe that.

Ella: (03:56)
And our dog.

Ella: (03:57)
Oh,

Ella: (03:58)
Oh boy.

Ella: (03:59)
Yeah. Um, should we tell, I struggled with wanting to tell this because I might get in trouble from my brother and my mom

Ella: (04:07)
Uhoh

Ella: (04:08)
Um,

Ella: (04:09)
Oh no.

Ella: (04:10)
So we came about this episode, flaming farts or a bunch of hot air. Should I tell this story?

Ella: (04:18)
Yeah, go ahead. Do it.

Ella: (04:19)
Okay. Why not? So it came about, because once again, we were telling Ella all the weird things that our parents or grandparents would tell us when we were growing up. And one of the things I told Ella was that when I was young, my grandfather told my cousin and my brother who were also young, um, that they could light their farts on fire. Huh. And it just became a thing for years and years that we talked about or like, oh, you can light your farts on fire. How do you light your farts on fire?

Ella: (04:59)
Why would you want to know you?

Ella: (05:01)
We just wanna say, this is not a thing.

[sound effect]: (05:05)
Don’t Try this at home.

Ella: (05:05)
We’re just telling you that. For some reason, it’s not just my grandpa that told my cousin and brother, this is kind of a thing that people talk about apparently, because when we brought it up, other people knew what we were talking about, which is bizarre.

Ella: (05:25)
Yeah.

Ella: (05:26)
Yeah. That’s how this episode came about. So you can thank my grandpa. Wow. Um, thank

Ella: (05:33)
You for an amazing episode idea. Amazing. Okay. Amazing. Yeah.

Ella: (05:38)
Amazing. Might be pushing it. But did you know that there is a scientific name for farting huh? Or farts it’s called flatulence

Ella: (05:45)
Flatulence,

Ella: (05:46)
But there are also a whole bunch of other names for farts.

Ella: (05:50)
Oh, you know, what’s one, I’ve heard what it’s terrible, but blowing the brown bugle,

Ella: (05:56)
Uh, gas.

Ella: (05:57)

Ella: (05:58)
passing wind

Ella: (06:00)
Crop dusting,

Ella: (06:02)
Air biscuit.

Ella: (06:04)
And then, you know, just fart, which…

Ella: (06:06)
Breaking wind.

Ella: (06:07)
Oh

Ella: (06:08)
Boy. Whole bunch of other things. And if you have another name for them that we didn’t cover go over to our website and let us know because that’s the kind of weird podcast that we are.

Ella: (06:18)
That’s how amazing we are. We wanna know the names for farts you

Ella: (06:21)
Use. Yes. But really, uh, a fart is made up of a really, truly made up of a bunch of different gases that your body’s trying to get rid of like nitrogen oxygen, um, hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and also methane. And some of these gases come from food when you break them down, like when you eat them and other gases come from your body as the food MOS through your system,

Ella: (06:44)
You know, what’s one of the reasons that your farts stink.

Ella: (06:48)
Oh, uh, tell me,

Ella: (06:52)
Well it’s can be the very small amount of hydrogen sulfide that is often in your farts, which yeah. It’s, it’s very stinking. Yeah. Gross. Also in a quote from vox.com, the potent stink research has found is largely due to the 1% or so of compounds with sulfur in them, such as hydrogen sulfide, this sort of research itself is pretty amazing. One experiment involved. Two people judging the smelliness of farts of 16 participants.

Ella: (07:27)
I do not want that job.

Ella: (07:28)
Who’d been fed beans

Ella: (07:30)
Gross.

Ella: (07:31)
And then collected with the help of gas-tight Mylar Pantaloons. Yeah,

Ella: (07:39)
No, I know that just left a visual for me that I’ll never be able to scrub for my brain,

Ella: (07:44)
But balloons.

Ella: (07:50)
So when all those gasses build up in your system, they have to escape. And like you said, some of them don’t smell and some of them smell really bad. And it’s just the different level of those gasses in your system. And the combination of those gasses.

Ella: (08:06)
It’s mostly the, uh, hydrogen sulfide

Ella: (08:09)
Though. Whoa, what makes you hard besides the build up of those gases? There are other things do you know,

Ella: (08:17)
Sometimes it can be gulping can be like gulping air down, uh, your non lung pipe, the other pipe, uh, and that, you know, goes through your stomach and just kind of gets stuck in there.

Ella: (08:33)
Also fizzy carbonated drinks. Yeah. This will be no shock to anyone beans. Ooh. I think we all know greasy fried fried foods. Ugh, can give you gas and they can also make your farts smell worse because they release more gases as your body breaks them down. And also some people are lactose intolerant, so they can’t eat dairy products. So things like milk and ice cream and cheese, um, can make them a little extra farty. Guess what else? I found out what? According to discover magazine, only about 1% of farts have smell.

Ella: (09:12)
I was about to say,

Ella: (09:14)
No, I …

Ella: (09:15)
Actually, I was gonna say most of our farts, about 99% are odorless. They’re completely smell-less

Ella: (09:21)
How can that be? I live with two dogs who are the stinkiest dogs. So you’re trying to tell me that 99% of their farts aren’t smelling.

Ella: (09:31)
That means, so if they fart,

Ella: (09:34)
We can put this together as a homeschool statistical problem for you, if you want.

Ella: (09:38)
Exactly, feel free to get out your statistic sheet, Uh, that everyone has. Uh, but yeah. So if they’re like farting

Ella: (09:49)
All the time,

Ella: (09:50)
Five minutes, let’s say that’s very stinky

Ella: (09:55)

Ella: (09:55)
Are they fighting like farting, like every second

Ella: (09:57)
They’re farting nonstop.

Ella: (09:59)
What about our cats?

Ella: (10:01)
I don’t know. I don’t need… That’s weird.

Ella: (10:02)
Let’s not, I don’t wanna know.

Ella: (10:03)
So let’s go into, can you really light your farts on fire?

Ella: (10:09)
Yes.

Ella: (10:10)
You’re saying you can. Yes. Yeah, because you know what, there’s actually a name for lighting your farts on fire.

Ella: (10:18)
You may have heard at the head of the episode, but pyroflatulance.

Ella: (10:21)
That’s right. There’s really a name called pyro flatulence.

Ella: (10:25)
It’s it’s the official word. It’s my new favorite word.

Ella: (10:28)
It’s scientific.. If you break the word down, pyro is the word part that means fire and flatulent is the real name flat of farts, which we covered earlier. Gas is produced by our body and in, and the gases in farts like hydrogen and methane when, which mixed with O oxygen when outside the body are actually what makes it flamable.

Ella: (10:51)
It’s so flamable but one of the gases that makes up fart hydrogen is flamable enough that it’s used as rocket fuel. Wow.

Ella: (11:00)
Yeah. I have so many jokes about that. That I won’t share them with you here. You so technically you could light a fart on fire, but you should not do that. No, there’s no people have actually gotten serious injured. Just trying to do this as a joke. So do not do this at home. These are all informational. The reason that this came about was because my grandpa used to tell my joking with my brother and cousin, and we decided to do this podcast on it.

Ella: (11:35)
And that ha how this I idea came to be. I hope there were no burnt butts in the making.

Ella: (11:42)
No burned butts in the making of this podcast. I can tell you that,

Ella: (11:46)
Uh, something else that I found interesting about lighting your farts on fire. Yeah. Depending on the gases and your farts. So if you have farts with a higher content of hydrogen, which seems more normal, it’ll be like a normal yellow, orange kind of flame. But one with a usual amount of methane will be blue.

Ella: (12:09)
And this is all something you should not try.

Ella: (12:13)
Don’t try this at all. Seriously. I can’t stress enough. Don’t try this.

Ella: (12:17)
That’s right. Did you know? So I have some fun facts about farts.

Ella: (12:23)
fart facts.

Ella: (12:24)
I have some fart facts.

Ella: (12:26)
I hope they don’t stink.

Ella: (12:27)
You’ll let me know after I hope that that this is in the 90%. That is odorless. That was bad.

Ella: (12:35)
Was it? That was so bad.

Ella: (12:37)
Okay. Did you know that chewing gum can give you gas really? Because you already said it. What’s one thing that chewing gum does

Ella: (12:45)
Gets air down your oh yeah. Air down your food

Ella: (12:49)
Pipe. That’s right. It makes you swallow a lot of air. So, so gum chewing gum can actually give you gas, uh, according to the New York times, which part of the day is usually your biggest part

Ella: (13:03)
After lunch.

Ella: (13:04)
Nope. Your first part of the day

Ella: (13:07)
Is your, because it’s, you’re holding it in all night. I don’t know.

Ella: (13:10)
Just, I don’t know. I wouldn’t, I, someone, I think someone else out the, there should do the research on that. Yeah. But, uh, they, the New York times also said the average daily fart volume is enough to fill up a medium size balloon. So you fart enough to fill up a medium size balloon throughout the day.

Ella: (13:28)
I’m interested to see how they got that,

Ella: (13:31)
Uh, how they measure that. Yeah. Um, also one study found that women’s farts smell worse than men’s farts.

Ella: (13:40)
No. Oh no, no. Okay.

Ella: (13:42)
It can’t be true. Right.

Ella: (13:44)
I mean, once again, according to our dogs, our female dogs. Oh, that’s true. You know?

Ella: (13:49)
Oh boy. Uh it’s because women have a greater concentration of hydrogen sulfide and hydrogen sulfide is that thing that gives rotten eggs, their smell. Yeah. So that’s why apparently we have a greater concentration and I don’t, I’m not telling your dad this because I’ll never hear the end of it. No, you that fact getting scratched on the podcast, he

Ella: (14:14)
Will not be allowed to listen to episode.

Ella: (14:16)
Guess how often you far today?

Ella: (14:19)
Every,

Ella: (14:20)
How many times,

Ella: (14:21)
Uh, how many

Ella: (14:22)
Times, the number of times don’t go on? How much you fart?

Ella: (14:26)
Oh, I, I, I read it at the beginning of episode, 10, 20 times a day.

Ella: (14:30)
I have 14 to 22. So we’re in that range. Wow. 22. Wow.

Ella: (14:37)
That’s not too bad. I mean like a fart an hour.

Ella: (14:42)
You’re farting once an hour, at least

Ella: (14:45)
I don’t wanna answer that.

Ella: (14:46)
I saw the bubble over your head calculating for a second. Um,

Ella: (14:51)
Don’t ask

Ella: (14:52)
Also, this is my last, and I don’t know if this is a fun fact, but this is from a rolling stone headline that I saw. And then I actually saw, heard a bunch of stories about it, but in January of this year’s so January 20, 22, a Tik Tok-er made $200,000 by farting into jars and selling them. Yeah.

Ella: (15:14)
Gross. I mean, that’s not the worst

Ella: (15:16)
By the way. This is why you can’t be on TikTok.

Ella: (15:21)
That’s the, that’s the only reason.

Ella: (15:23)
But now I don’t know if you’re gonna make $200,000. I might have to rethink that. Wow. So we I’m I’m was afraid to say, if we busted this parent topic or not, we technically said scientifically farts could be lit on fire.

Ella: (15:42)
So is it busted as in it’s true or false?

Ella: (15:45)
I don’t really wanna say, cause it’s been yes and no, you can light your farts on fire scientifically. I’m trying to say this in a parent . Yep. Go ahead. Scientifically farts can be lit on fire technically, but you can’t light your farts on fire, so don’t do it.

Ella: (16:09)
Okay. I have something that might help. So if like in the cartoons and you see if like a character like lit their like made a fart, flame thrower, you can’t do

Ella: (16:19)
That.

Ella: (16:19)
No. See, okay. Here’s like the statistics of it. Average flame thrower has like 15, 20 liter fuel tank. You’d have to fart 20 times more than you normally do. Just to get enough fuel the power up the flame thrower for a minute or two. I mean,

Ella: (16:39)
Is this making it better or

Ella: (16:40)
Worse? I don’t know. I’m trying to help. I don’t think I am

Ella: (16:44)
Nice. Okay. Do you just wanna go to the two truths that I’ll lie?

Ella: (16:48)
I might have one more thing. Okay.

Ella: (16:51)
I’m I’m kind of afraid. I’m afraid of this episode.

Ella: (16:55)
Yeah. You can hear the fear in her voice

Ella: (16:59)
Because I’m a parent and I understand the wild

Ella: (17:02)
Parent. You can hear the fear in her voice

Ella: (17:04)
As shes

Ella: (17:05)
About flatlands, uh, one animal that should not try to make their farts into a flame. There are cows. Mm. Those things, one fart, a ton. And to have so much methane

Ella: (17:20)
Right.

Ella: (17:21)
In their farts. Like they have so much methane and farts. So regularly that, that trap greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Right. So yeah. Never hold a flame up to a cow. Okay.

Ella: (17:33)
So let’s try, let home. I’m gonna, I’m gonna stop now. Yeah. Let’s

Ella: (17:38)
Just stop. Let’s go on the two. And are you ready? Um, anyway,

Ella: (17:43)
IM ready at home.

Ella: (17:43)
Okay. So are you

Ella: (17:46)
Ready? I’m ready. Okay.

Ella: (17:47)
You

Ella: (17:47)
Already said that. Yeah. You already

Ella: (17:49)
Said that. Okay. Number one, your fart flame can be blue.

Ella: (17:54)
True.

Ella: (17:55)
Number two, the scientific name for fart is pyro flatulence.

Ella: (18:01)
Nope. That’s the lie because flatulence is the real name for farting, for a fart. And pyro. Flatulence is the technical name for lighting your farts on fire.

Ella: (18:14)
It’s scary, but there’s a technical

Ella: (18:15)
Name for that.

Ella: (18:16)
I know it’s bizarre. And then that means number three is the truth, which is your farts. Don’t always stink.

Ella: (18:23)
Yeah. Uh, thanks. Hey, thanks for listening. If you like what we’re doing here, please leave us a five star review. So Ella knows that our homeschool research didn’t go to waste, please. Also we are parent busters on Facebook, Insta and Twitter. So join us over there too,

Ella: (18:43)
But not on TikTok because someone said I can’t be on TikTok right now.

Ella: (18:48)
That is right. Hey, you know what else? Parents head over to our website. Parent busters.com.

Ella: (18:54)
Wow. How original.

Ella: (18:56)
Wow. Did you just say how wow, how original? No, yes. That’s right. Our website is named exactly the same as our podcast.

Ella: (19:05)
Yep. Parent busters.com.

Ella: (19:08)
Um, anyway, parent head over to parent master just.com because there’s more learning after listening, we have a ton of ideas to go along with things you heard in the podcast in fun ways. You can continue learning with your kids together.

Ella: (19:22)
Wait, wait, wasn’t there a printable or download you want to

Ella: (19:26)
Talk about? Oh yeah, that’s right. Uh, thank you. There’s also a download parents that you should head over to grab before you even listen to any of the podcast. It’s the printable Buster deduction sheet. And it’s from our BU our Buster buddy club. I don’t know why I can’t get that out. It’s just like a ton of bees or something like

Ella: (19:45)
That. It’s a tongue twister.

Ella: (19:46)
Anyway, it’s a principal Buster deduction sheet, print this out and your kids can write down their guesses on the topic. And, uh, there’s a space in there for the two truths in a lie that we do before every podcast. Then you’re gonna listen to the podcast together and then you can document any facts you learn. You can, uh, write down the two truths in a lie that you find out. And there are, uh, lots of other they that you can do with those deduction sheets. So head over and check it out. It’s

Ella: (20:16)
Free. Yeah. It’s really fun.

Ella: (20:18)
Join us for our next podcast. We would tell you when they are, but we really don’t know right now. We’ll figure it out though.

Ella: (20:26)
And we’ll let you know when we figure it out. If we figure it out, we’ll probably figure it. I don’t know. I hope we figure it out. I really hope then this recording time would just go to ways.

Ella: (20:37)
All right, we’ll see you guys on the next

Ella: (20:39)
Episode have good, uh, whatever insert time of day. It is. Bye.

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Jacqueline Wilson, the mom half of the Parent Busters Podcast, is also the founder of Homeschool Super Freak (named a top 15 BEST Homeschool Site), a professional educational consultant and writer, former award-winning college professor, educator of 18+ years, homeschooling mom of over 11 years, and #1 Bestselling Education Author. She's been featured in local and national news and media outlets. She loves rescue pets.