“The human digestive tract is like the Amtrak line from Seattle to Los Angeles: transit time is about thirty hours, and the scenery on the last leg is pretty monotonous.”
Work
The irresistible, ever-curious, and always best-selling Mary Roach returns with a new adventure to the invisible realm we carry around inside. “America’s funniest science writer” (Washington Post) takes us down the hatch on an unforgettable tour. The alimentary canal is classic Mary Roach terrain: the questions explored in Gulp are as taboo, in their way, as the cadavers in Stiff and every bit as surreal as the universe of zero gravity explored in Packing for Mars. Why is crunchy food so appealing? Why is it so hard to find words for flavors and smells? Why doesn’t the stomach digest itself? How much can you eat before your stomach bursts? Can constipation kill you? Did it kill Elvis? In Gulp we meet scientists who tackle the questions no one else thinks of―or has the courage to ask. We go on location to a pet-food taste-test lab, a fecal transplant, and into a live stomach to observe the fate of a meal. With Roach at our side, we travel the world, meeting murderers and mad scientists, Eskimos and exorcists (who have occasionally administered holy water rectally), rabbis and terrorists―who, it turns out, for practical reasons do not conceal bombs in their digestive tracts. Like all of Roach’s books, Gulp is as much about human beings as it is about human bodies.
Quotes
Showing 1-8 of 8
Mary Roach
Canonical work source
“The human digestive tract is like the Amtrak line from Seattle to Los Angeles: transit time is about thirty hours, and the scenery on the last leg is pretty monotonous.”
“The simplest strategy for bouts of noxious flatus is to not care. Or perhaps to take advantage of a gastroenterologist I know: get a dog. (To blame.)”
“think of it.' said Robert Rosenbluth, a doctor whose acquaintance i made at the start of this book. 'no engineer could design something as multifunctional and fine tuned as an anus. to call...”
“It tastes like water spiked with strange.”
“I challenge you to find a more innocuous sentence containing the words sperm, suction, swallow, and any homophone of seaman. And then call me up on the homophone and read it to me.”
“It's called the FATLOSE trail. FATLOSE stands for 'Fecal Administration To LOSE weight,' an example of PLEASE— Pretty Lame Excuse for an Acronym, Scientists and Experimenters.”
“Constipation ran Presley's life. Even his famous motto TCB— 'Taking Care of Business'— sounds like a reference to bathroom matters.”
“During World War II, when combat rations were tinned, meat hashes were a common entrée because they worked well with the filling machines. “But the men wanted something they could chew, some...”