Famous ZOE blue muffin poop test
- charles woolnough
- Jul 5
- 2 min read
I don't know how famous this really is, but I'd heard of it and wanted to share both the test and the recipe.
The test is simple - eat blue muffins, check how long they take to go through your system and come out as poop. This elapsed time is the 'gut transit time' and is likely between 12 hours and a couple of days. Generally speaking, the faster they're out the better, although if they plop out 30 minutes later you probably have issues.
Tim Spector and the ZOE team devised both the test and the muffin recipe. More on the ZOE site if you want , and I also recommend Tim's book 'Food For Life' . I would probably recommend his other books, had I read them, as Food For Life was eye-opening and came with lots of practical advice.
Anyway getting to the point, here's the recipe for the muffins (makes 12 small) :
Ingredients
245g plain flour
1 tbsp baking powder
200g granulated sugar
100ml vegetable oil
230ml water
1tsp Vanilla extract
1tsp Royal Blue food dye
Method
Preheat oven to 160c (fan)
Line a 12-muffin tin with muffin cases
Mix dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder)
Separately , mix the Vegetable Oil, water, vanilla extract
Make a well in the dry ingredients, add the oil, water, vanilla extract mix and combine
Add blue food dye and mix thoroughly
Fill the 12 muffin cases with the mix
Bake for 25 minutes or until metal skewer comes out of muffin clean
Cool
Once you're ready, eat two muffins, note the time and then wait for the magic to happen.
Zoe no longer allows you to log the transit time with them. Of course you could use the Plopp app notes.
Final tip, ZOE / Tim says you don't need to worry about what else you're eating, but the first time I did the blue muffin challenge I also ate a load of beetroot which metaphorically muddied the water, given its effect on the colour of wee and poo, so
from personal experience I'd recommend avoiding Beetroot for the purposes of this test, until the blue is in the loo.
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