Can red velvet cookies do this?

[Arie12]

41 year old male here with health anxiety for years. I've never had an official IBS diagnosis, but I think I have it. Two weeks ago two bad days with a lot of diarrhea, it cleared up but my stomach was still tender. Yesterday had to admit I ate a lot of red velvet cookies, and today I have diarrhea again and it's completely red. I've read stories about red velvet cookies doing this, but does anyone have experience with this? My poo is completely red all day, I know it's probably the cookies, but the diarrhea and color is stressing me out

[Jeffroyourhero]

In my experience, when you've got IBS and Anxiety poop, what you ate tends to retain a good bit of its properties (color, etc). So the odds are very high.

[.Poppy.]

Yes. "True" red velvet isn't as bright red as most "red velvet" stuff on the market. There is a lot of red dye in it. And it very commonly will turn your waste red. The same would happen if you ate/drank something with a lot of green dye, or blue dye, etc.

[NoraB]

41 year old male here with health anxiety for years. I've never had an official IBS diagnosis, but I think I have it. Two weeks ago two bad days with a lot of diarrhea, it cleared up but my stomach was still tender. Yesterday had to admit I ate a lot of red velvet cookies, and today I have diarrhea again and it's completely red. I've read stories about red velvet cookies doing this, but does anyone have experience with this? My poo is completely red all day, I know it's probably the cookies, but the diarrhea and color is stressing me out

You ate cookies which contain a lot of red food dye and your shit was red. Once you've shitted the dye out of your colon, you'll be back to a normal shade of poo.

Have you heard about the 'blue poop challenge'? It's where people are eating blue muffins in order to check their gut transit time.. Unsurprisingly, the dye make their turds look like a Smurf took a dump in their loo. (and the toilet will be a bugger to clean)

Re your red poo; there's no concern here because there's a clear case of cause and effect.

Re the diarrhoea; sounds to me like you might have had a tummy bug 2 weeks ago and these things can affect the gut for a lot longer with people who have IBS. Listen to your body and be mindful of what you're eating and drinking. Eat some foods which are known to firm up the stool such as eggs, white rice, white bread - bananas etc and don't have caffeine (it's an IBS trigger). The blander the food the better. Treat the symptom. Scoffing a load of sugary cookies when your digestive system is struggling is asking for more of the same. You need to really watch what you're eating and help your gut to settle down...

[Arie12]

Thanks everyone! Colour has returned to normal, flat stools remain but I guess that was to be expected with all the anxiety the last weeks.

And yeah I've read about the blue poo experiment, I would be a mess with blue poo!