Here’s a detailed look at black stools being caused by spinach.

Have you recently looked into the toilet bowl and noticed that your poops were black?

Did you panic?

Did you realize you recently ate spinach?

Spinach may cause stools to appear black. However, in my experience, I have another explanation.

I juice a lot of spinach, enough to sometimes make an 8 ounce glass of juiced produce that includes fruits and greens.

Drinking all that deep green from the spinach can have a striking effect on the color of your stools.

One day I noticed my BMs were nearly black — not like the color of coal, but near black enough to grab my attention.

I had ingested a larger-than-usual amount of spinach.

With a spoon I removed some of the BM, brought it towards the light above the sink and closely inspected it with my eyes.

The stool matter, turns out, was NOT black. It was very, very dark green. I mean REALLY DARK GREEN.

Have you ever seen a blackish-green car? It was kind of like that.

“Spinach contains iron,” says Lawrence Hoberman, MD, a board certified gastroenterologist and creator of EndoMune probiotic products.

“Large servings can cause the stools to be dark, but generally not black.”

So next time you see what appears to be black poops in the toilet bowl, remove some with a spoon and give it a close visual inspection under a good light source to see what color it really is.

With 40+ years’ experience, Dr. Hoberman is an expert in probiotics. He has extensive first-hand experience treating a variety of digestive health issues and has seen the dramatic results probiotics have had on his patients.
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.