Jordan didn't know what was going on in his stomach. But after eating lunch and going to recess, he stopped wanting to run around after a soccer ball. Was it something he ate? Did he gobble his lunch too fast? Was he coming down with the " stomach flu "? Jordan was just about to ask his best friend, Nate, for some advice, when Jordan felt like something moved inside his belly. Before he could take a breath, a giant multicolored mess came out of his mouth.
Jordan felt like yelling too, but his nose was clogged and his throat burned so badly he could barely talk. What just happened? Jordan just threw up, or puked. But what is puke?
It goes by many names: vomit, throw up, upchuck, gut soup, ralphing, and barf. Whatever you call it, it's the same stuff: mushed-up, half-digested food or liquid that gets mixed with spit and stomach juices as it makes a quick exit up your throat and out of your mouth.
Sometimes puke tastes bitter, sometimes it tastes sour. Sometimes it tastes like the food you just ate, and it's often the color of what you last munched on, too. For example, blueberry pie might churn up blue puke. A red ice pop might make red puke. Your puke may be green sometimes, but that's not because you ate green beans. Puke looks green when a chemical called bile say: BYEL mixes with it. This will happen if the food that comes back up is squeezed from your intestines into your stomach and then up your throat.
Be sure to tell a parent if your puke looks green. No matter what color it is, though, puke usually stinks — whether you've eaten tuna fish, toast, or jelly beans.
