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Poop is mostly shades of brown or yellow, but other colors can arise under certain circumstances. For example, someone with a bleeding ulcer might have tarry black poop from the presence of partially digested blood. Bleeding in the intestine, from an anal fissure or split, for example, can stain the poop red. Bloody poop can also be a sign of colon cancer, so you should get it checked out by a doctor if you see blood in your stool. Some illnesses in babies gives them green or even blue-green poop. But another source of blue poop in children is more innocent: it can come from eating a concentrated source of blue food coloring such as ice cream. Intense red food coloring can produce bright red poop. Sometimes brightly colored foods pass through the gut almost unchanged, and the turd may be speckled with bright red fragments such as pimentos, or bright yellow kernels of corn.
Poop can also be stained red if you eat beets.
One can experience white poop after consuming a barium milkshake for the purposes of getting an x-ray of the upper gastrointestinal tract.
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