Orange poop

Orange poop almost always traces to food or medicine. Beta-carotene, the pigment in carrots, sweet potatoes, squash and pumpkin, is the classic cause, followed by food dyes and a few medicines, most notably the antibiotic rifampin. Orange and yellow tones are also part of normal stool color, so a slightly orange day on its own is rarely anything to think about.

See more than color: Stoolio reads color alongside your Bristol type and 12 visual readings from one photo, and keeps the record, so you can tie a color back to what you ate. Your first three scans are free.

Why can poop be orange?

Normal stool already carries orange. Cleveland Clinic notes that poop color is usually a mix of brown, yellow and orange, with the yellow and orange coming from bile and bilirubin. Add a lot of an orange pigment from food, or a medicine that colors body fluids, and the orange takes over.

Common explanations

• Beta-carotene foods. Carrots, sweet potatoes, squash and pumpkin. Cleveland Clinic's gastroenterologist notes you would have to eat a lot of carrots, and that it is seen more in people who drink a lot of carrot juice.
• Food dyes. Artificial coloring keeps tinting whatever it touches, even after it is eaten.
• Rifampin. This antibiotic, used for tuberculosis and some other infections, can temporarily turn skin, teeth, saliva, urine, stool, sweat and tears yellow, reddish-orange or brown (MedlinePlus). It is an expected effect; do not stop the medicine because of it.
• Other medicines. Pediatric guidance lists several, including rifabutin, senna and some tetracyclines, that can give stool an orange or red tint.

Foods that can turn poop orange

Carrots and carrot juice, sweet potatoes and yams, squash and pumpkin, plus orange-colored drinks, candy and snacks with added dye. The same beta-carotene foods can also turn stool yellow. A food-driven tint should fade within a day or two once the food has passed, though it can take a few days.

One unusual exception: oily orange discharge

Escolar and oilfish, sometimes sold as "butterfish," contain wax esters the body cannot digest. Eating them can cause an oily orange or brownish-green discharge from the rectum, a condition researchers call keriorrhea. It typically passes once the fish has cleared your system. If you see orange oil after a sushi dinner, that may be why.

When to check in with a clinician

No health source sets a threshold specific to orange, so the general rule applies: contact a healthcare provider if your stool has not returned to brown within a few days and you cannot connect the color to a food or medicine, or sooner if it comes with symptoms such as pain, fever, diarrhea or weight loss. If you are taking rifampin and the discoloration is severe or does not go away, MedlinePlus advises telling your doctor.

What Stoolio looks at visually

Stoolio's Color Assessment reads each scan against six shades: pale, light brown, brown, dark brown, green and very dark. Orange is not a separate shade on that scale. What a scan adds is context: your Bristol type, consistency and other visual readings, logged with the date and any note you add, like "carrot juice at lunch." That record turns a puzzling color into an obvious cause, or shows that it has hung around long enough to mention to a clinician. See the full poop color chart.

Sources

1. Cleveland Clinic Health Essentials. 4 Things That Cause Yellow Diarrhea. 2025.
2. Cleveland Clinic Health Essentials. Can Food Change the Color of Your Poop? 2025.
3. Cleveland Clinic. What Does My Stool (Poop) Color Mean?
4. MedlinePlus. Rifampin.
5. AAP HealthyChildren. Red Stools in Children: Common Causes. 2024.
6. Ling KH, et al. Fish-induced keriorrhea. Adv Food Nutr Res. 2009.
7. MedlinePlus. Stools - pale or clay-colored.