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Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal
Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal
Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal
Audiobook8 hours

Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal

Written by Mary Roach

Narrated by Emily Woo Zeller

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

()

About this audiobook

"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.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateApr 1, 2013
ISBN9781452683423
Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal
Author

Mary Roach

Mary Roach is the author of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, and Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void. She lives in Oakland, California.

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Reviews for Gulp

Rating: 3.990857091657143 out of 5 stars
4/5

875 ratings119 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I love getting my science on, and reading the cleverly named Gulp - Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach recently enabled me to do just that.Mary Roach takes the reader through the entire digestive process, from smell, taste, saliva and what happens in the stomach to noxious flatus and the colon.The science of the human body is explained and discussed in layman's terms with a sense of humour and case studies that often left me gagging for more.I absorbed many nuggets whilst reading Gulp, here's a taste:Colds and flus aren't spread by drinking from a sick person's glass. They're spread by touching it. One person's finger leaves virus particles on the glass; the next person's picks them up and transfers them to the respiratory tract via an eye-rub or nose-pick. Page 121-122Nasal regurgitation (when drinking milk and it comes out of your nose) is more common with children, because they are often laughing while eating and because their swallowing mechanism isn't fully developed. Page 139According to one competitive eater: "Flavour fatigue sets in after three to five minutes; beyond that point everything is more or less equally revolting." Page 192A grazing cow can produce a hundred gallons of methane a day, vented, as stomach gases typically are, through the mouth. Page 228. I didn't know that they were vented through the mouth, I thought they were emitted as gas!!Roach lifts the lid on the production of pet food, the purpose of saliva and more (you'll be shocked to learn how much saliva you swallow in a day). I could go on and on, but I think you get the drift. Gulp is a funny, educational and thought provoking read that takes a good look at the gross and the taboo inside the human body and I loved it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A detailed look at the alimentary canal, from appetite, to eating, to digestion, and beyond. In places disgusting, but interesting throughout. It amazes me how little of food manufacturing and public health campaigning is actually based on sound science. A lot is known by academics but it doesn't seem to be filtering down to the public, for example, too much fibre actually increases your risk of cancer. Fascinating.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Gleefully gross, funny, and lots of interesting stuff. There's science in here, but also a lot of science history.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Mary Roach’s scientific curiosity seems to know no limits, and her sense of humor is boundless. With her typical aplomb, she delves into the most taboo of subjects: our guts.Roach explores the human digestive system in all its glory. Her musings on our guts are divided into chapters about food, saliva, digestion, flatulence, and the anatomy and physiology that make all this possible. Her sense of humor might seem, at first, inappropriate, but it does not interfere with Roach’s in-depth research and interesting interviews. Potty jokes aside, Roach discusses all the ways our digestive system is amazing—when it works. She also talks about what happens when it does not work properly, and all the incredible research being done to decipher that percolating labyrinth we have inside.Roach is a keen observer as well as an astute interviewer. She is willing to try things only the researchers dedicated to this topic might dare. She asks the questions others might be embarrassed to ask. But you know you want to know the answers.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Gross read sometimes hard to listen to, funny and well written
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Interesting Gross = It took me a long time to read this mostly because I couldn't read it during my lunch break.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is the first book I've read by Mary Roach, and I do intend to read others. I liked her breezy tone and humour, but not her frequent descriptions of the people she interviews. Note to science authors: I don't care what a researcher wears. (Sorry. That has become a pet peeve of mine.) It seemed like she spent more time on the "output" than on the "input", although this impression may just have been a result of listening to it over a period of several weeks. At any rate it certainly seemed like we spent a lot of time in the colon. The book was fun and interesting, and sheds some light on a subject that we don't tend to talk about. It also gets pretty gross in places.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Gulp is a book 14-year-old boys would likely love, having to do with bodily secretions: saliva, mucous, feces, and flatus – what a grad-school friend called “body boo.” I’m not certain how Gulp will go over with the non-fiction group at my public library, which averages quite a bit older than 14. It should be an interesting discussion.Mary Roach writes funny. It doesn’t appear that she can help it. And her light-hearted, irreverent approach makes the book a gem to read. But not at meal time. Much of the book’s humor comes from the researchers Mary Roach interviewed for the book. They’re dedicated, intense, and innovative. Some of their methodologies are a bit gross, but I guess that can’t be helped in their lines of work. This is a book I wouldn’t have picked up on my own. But that’s the beauty of belonging to a book group whose members recommend a wide variety of books that take us out of our comfort zone.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Loved this book. Mary Roach is funny (very), smart, and a good researcher. The information is fascinating and the writing just flows (no pun intended) - a total delight.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Wow! Incredible stories! So much random cool interesting things to learn about our bodies and other animals! I would recommend this to anyone with curiosity and/or interest in science of your own body!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Well written and interesting, but falls flat in some parts. However it is a delight to hear the style of Mary Roach. Start with another one of hers.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Some minor misfires hardly damage this amusingly fascinating elucidation of alimentary oddities (and some of the basics of the subject as well.) I am now fan of Mary Roach and intend to read most of her books.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Gulp: The Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach
    348 pages

    ★★★★

    It seems like Mary Roach has the ability of turning any boring subject and turning it into something fun and interesting. Even in all my non-fiction reading, I know few other authors who can turn around a subject, such as the digestive track, into something I just want to keep reading about. This isn’t my favorite one by her (that one would be Bonk!) but this one was quite good. I read through this 300 page book in 2 days (an impressive amount for me anyway). I just love Mary Roach’s humor. She has a way to be sarcastic and yet be very respectful of the subject she is writing about. She has become a favorite author of mine and I look forward to what subject she may write about next. Her books are always well researched and well written. This book may not be for the squeamish. Roach can go into some pretty raunchy details on the digestive tract so I at least wouldn’t suggest reading this book while eating a meal!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Definitely has a cringy and ick factor but fascination, humorous and fodder for cocktail conversation! I highly recommend it to anyone curious about the workings of the human digestive systems and the consequences of when it doesn’t work!
    Made me feel more empathy for poor Elvis.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A hilarious but lovingly detailed tour of the human digestive tract from mouth to anus. The author will not spare the reader any scenic overlook, no matter how gag-inducing. This will not be a comfortable read for many, but it is so full of fascinating facts and will deeply satisfy all the curiosity deemed unseemly by polite society. I'll admit that I hesitate with this one. I love and have read all of Mary Roach's other books, but I almost stopped with this one. I'm not fully sure why. I'm not a delicate or easily disgusted person. But, I don't know, I thought it would be boring? I think I imagined that the digestive tract was basically just a garden hose distributing nutrition throughout the body.But from the first page I was captivated and beguiled by lively humor and broad entertainment. This book, along with Ms. Roach's others, is hugely recommended.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    People have told me to read Mary Roach's Stiff so many times I can't count. I haven't gotten around to it for one reason or another, but when I saw Gulp at the library I snatched it up. I wasn't sure I was entirely interested in the "alimentary canal," but Roach's writing is very accessible and humorous. Plus there are about three chapters on flatus, so that was right up my alley. Despite not being too interested in science, this book hooked me. It's more like weird science - experiments you never learned about in school, speculations, silly little jokes that showed me the author's sense of humor was just like mine. It will make you laugh out loud many times, all while learning something.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Gulp by Mary Roach (4 stars)Gulp, Adventures Down the Alimentary canal- I’ve not been disappointed by the science books written by this author, Stiff, Spook, Packing for Mars…She is one curious individual, and she shares her curiosity and what she finds out with the reader, basing the information given on facts, studies, and copious footnotes in the book. She is brave enough to ask the questions that nobody else will. She is drawn to subjects that we are all curious about but too polite to ask after because they are not considered polite dinner table conversation. As a person who has spent many years working in a medical laboratory, with specimens such as blood, urine, stool, bits of surgically removed toes, and sputum (worse than stool- yes, really), I am no stranger to these kinds of subjects, so these books fit right into areas that catch my interest. Not for the particularly squeamish, but interesting none the less.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Where to start? This was the book chosen (by popular vote) as The Flat Book Society's first official read. Opinions seem to be firmly split down the middle, and while possibly an inauspicious start to our fledgling club, it definitely generated a lot of discussion. My personal feelings about the book started off complicated: this is not the book I signed up for. I was hoping for an accessible but scientific look at the human digestive process from start to finish, looking at each step of the process in relative detail. I think a lot of us thought that was the book we were getting. Gulp is not that book. At first this was disappointing - it still is in the sense of the curiosity unfulfilled - but as I continued reading, and adjusted my expectations once it became obvious I was not going to get the book I expected, I ended up enjoying it a lot. Anyone who has ever read Judith Stone's columns in Discover magazine (a very long time ago) will know what to expect from Gulp (some of them were published in a book called Light Elements: Essays in Science from Gravity to Levity). Mary Roach is Judith Stone's successor, writing about the science that either seems trivial to most people, or the science no one wants to talk about. Obviously, Gulp is the latter. This is an overview of digestion in general; not just human, although that is the primary focus. Roach looks at it from both an anthropological view, discussing the effects our social views and taboos about digestion have on everything from the food we eat, to the medical care we receive, as well as the scientific as she interviews scientists, looks at case histories and discuses current research. Think of Gulp as an introduction; an audit (in the US English sense of the word), of the vast science of gastroenterology, written with a whole lot of humor. Roach never shies away from a joke, a double entendre, or a bit of lighthearted but vulgar fun. She never stoops to locker room level humour and she never does it at the expense of accuracy, but you can tell she's had a good time writing this book. She'd definitely be someone I'd enjoy meeting, although probably not at any social event including food. If that's the kind of book that appeals to you, definitely check this out; it will be informative and entertaining. If you're hoping for a more focused look at the intricacies of eating and digestion, pass this one on by; it will definitely disappoint.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This wasn't my favorite topic Roach has investigated and it took me a while to get through, but she did a good job, and I learned a lot.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Although Roach's writing is as quirky and accessible as ever, I didn't enjoy this as much as her other books. Perhaps it is the subject matter (although this is hardly much worse than corpses, and 'Stiff' is my favorite of her books.) I feel that the last half of the book lost some of its inertia. The chapters became shorter and more disconnected from each other. And I feel like the ending lacked the usual philosophical sign-off tying the first parts of the book to the last. I did, however, immensely appreciate her descriptions of wonderment at viewing her own internal architecture.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I read Stiff by Mary Roach a year or two ago and while gross, it was really interesting and I learned a lot more than I ever thought I would about dead bodies. In this installment, the grossness and interesting facts are still there, but the dead bodies (mostly) aren't. Mary Roach keeps things entertaining and she's ridiculous in a good way, toeing the line of going just a little too far at times. The worst thing about this book is how I kept wanting to mention things I learned during dinner conversations and my wife definitely did not want to learn those things while she was eating.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I do love Mary Roach. She fearlessly takes the road less travelled, each and every time.

    This particular road starts with the mouth, and ends with the ass. And this is one lady who's ass can cash the cheques her mouth writes.

    Great book, lots of fun, as usual.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    As always, Mary Roach tackles taboo subjects head on, with humor and matter-of-factness. This is rather a smattering of subjects about the digestive tract that caught her interest rather than a cohesive text, but if you find the subjects that Mary Roach finds interesting interesting also, this will be a worthwhile read, though not as fascinating as Stiff, in my opinion.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I do love a Mary Roach book. This seems like an unlikely topic to love, but I found it very, very interesting.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5

    Mary Roach, the popular science writer with the sense of humor of a 12-year-old, is in her element in this book that asks the questions we don't dare to ask about the alimentary canal. After all the human body is nothing more than a tube from mouth to anus with limbs attached, is it not? So it is natural to want to learn about smelling, tasting, chewing, swallowing, digesting, and excreting ... as well as a quite a few things that humans do with their alimentary canals that they weren't intended for.

    Here's a list of some of the topics Roach examines from reading the scientific literature and with interviews with researchers:

    • Olive oil tasting
    • Pet food flavoring (and the humans who taste them)
    • Organ meat consumption
    • Fletcherizing
    • Saliva
    • Why we like chewing crunchy food
    • Stomach expansion
    • Competitive eating
    • "Hooping" or smuggling items in the rectum
    • Methane & hydrogen in flattus
    • Rectal feeding
    • Coprophagia
    • Ritual enemas
    • Megacolon and the death of Elvis
    • Fecal transplants

    After reading that list, you are either fascinated or disgusted. Go with that feeling when determining whether this book is right for you.


    Favorite Passages:

    "You will occasionally not believe me, but my aim is not to disgust....I don't want you to say 'This is gross.' I want you to say, 'I thought this might be gross, but it's really interesting.' Okay, and maybe a little gross."

    The moral of the story is this: It takes an ill-advised mix of ignorance, arrogance, and profit motive to dismiss the wisdom of the human body in favor of some random notion you've hatched or heard and branded as true. By wisdom I mean the collective improvements of millions of years of evolution. The mind objects strongly to shit, but the body has no idea what we're on about.

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Mary Roach can do no wrong.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The title pretty much tells you what this one is. Mary Roach is looking at the alimentary canal, or pretty much the digestive system (apparently it is a portion of the digestive system). She is looking at what goes in one end and comes out the other. And bits of what happens in between.I listened to the audio. I’m not sure if there was as much humour as usual, or maybe I just missed some of it. I’m rating this one ok, and although the audio was fine, I think my mind did occasionally wander. Not sure if it would have had a higher rating if it hadn’t been the audio or not.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A fun read. Not particularly heavy on science, but a fun trip from smell to taste, throught he throat, stomach, and finally out the other end.
    Worth a read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    My favourite Roach book; I've recently read Stiff (on Cadavers) and Bonk (on Sex), but this was by far the most interesting and relatable - I'm sure I speak for everyone that I've spent more time in my life eating, digesting and excreting than I have either having sex (unfortunately) or being dead.

    Some particularly fascinating chapters on the science of animal food, farting and saliva - essential reading for anyone who has put a piece of food in their mouth and allowed it to exit from the other end of their body.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Mary Roach makes any subject she touches funny and fascinating. Gulp may be her best transformation ever. The mainly icky world of digestion is explained, explored, and examined in amazing detail from the lips to the anus. The journey, in her hands, is littered with fascinating facts and amazingly interesting people - current and historical - and snappy wit. I hope she writes forever. While she writes the next book, I'm going to go back and re-read some of her oldies but goodies.