Do All People's Pee Smell After Eating Asparagus?

Asparagus consumption provides a distinct odor to urine. This odor is because of the breakdown of a substance called asparagusic acid that is present in asparagus into sulfur-containing compounds. These compounds are passed into the urine, giving it a peculiar smell.

The enzymatic process breaks down distinct chemicals as your body digests meals. Asparagusic acid is broken into volatile compounds that are discharged through the urine. That's the odor you'll notice as the chemical leaves your body.

If you swear that you've never smelled what's colloquially known as asparagus pee, it is because you lack the ability to recognize the stench. The smell is present; you just can't detect it. 

• This is because your sense of scent, like your perception of color, is determined by your genes.
• Everyone has their own individual scent sense of the environment. Your perception of diverse odors is absolutely distinct.
• The inability to smell this asparagus pee is an example of anosmia, which occurs when a certain aroma is not detectable by a specific nose.

Asparagus pee is not the only aroma that causes anosmia in some people. Vanillin, the primary chemical present in vanilla, is difficult to identify in two or three people out of a hundred. Some people are hypersensitive (or hyposensitive) to androstenone, a component of sweat. It goes from being mild and lovely to being forceful and pretty terrible.

The human nose has about 10 million olfactory receptors that determine how you perceive smells. These receptors are regulated by hundreds of genes. Some people have a mutation in one of these genes, which alters the receptor's capacity to respond to the chemical that causes pee to smell funny. The deficiency appears to be random, and up to 50 percent of people can sense the smell.

Many creatures rely on their sense of smell to survive. Humans, on the other hand, rely heavily on their visual sense, so various mutations may have occurred in humans that degenerated the capacity to smell asparagus pee as a random error.

According to data, 40 percent of subjects firmly believed that they could detect a distinct odor in their urine after eating asparagus, whereas 60 percent could not and were labeled asparagus anosmic.

It has been reported 62 percent of women were unable to smell the odor, whereas 58 percent of men reported being unable to smell the odor. Researchers are skeptical of this finding because women are known to detect odors more precisely and consistently than men.

The research hypothesizes that this unexpected finding is due to a few modest women who did not want to acknowledge they could smell the stench or that the female stance during urinating makes them less likely to notice an odd odor.

Asparagus pee is something that cannot be controlled by anyone. However, it was suggested that removing the tips of the head of the asparagus before consuming may reduce the intensity of the asparagus pee. Although, many do not consider doing this just for the sake of smelly urine.