It was not that long ago that one of my college buddies mentioned to me that asparagus makes your urine smell bad. Apparently this fact is rather widely disseminated among young adults (adolescents rarely partake of the vegetable out of childish aversion), and although I do eat, and enjoy, asparagus, I was uninformed, obviously uninformed, of the urine bit. As I prepared some asparagus for this evening’s dinner, I decided to look into the phenomenon.

This notion of noisomeness associated with asparagus was first documented in the 1730s, despite the food’s longstanding culinary presence. It was not until the 20th century, however, that scientists investigated it. Although, I suppose that malodorous urine was no reason to keep a scientist up at night, considering that they did not yet realize that living organisms are made of cells, nor that infection is caused by germs. In any case, as far as I can tell, scientists first began to probe the issue in the 1950s. For the next 30-some years, it appears that they concluded, incorrectly, that Read the rest of this entry »