The 20-52 hour journey (Importance of Fiber)

How much the colon holds depends on the diet of the individual. Your intestines are not loaded with "toxins, undigested red meat, and impacted feces". If they were you would be dead. It takes 10-12 hours for food to travel from the mouth to the end of the small intestine (20 feet) where it is dumped into the large intestine (5 feet). This is where diet comes in. If you are eating an average American diet where fiber, fresh foods, lean meats, and raw nuts and seeds are not being eaten, it takes another 30-40 hours for material to travel through the large intestine(colon). So you can be carrying 6-8 lbs of slow moving waste and feces. If eating a healthy high fiber diet the transit time in the colon is cut to 10-12 hours and you carry 2-3 lbs of fast moving waste. With water weighting a little over 2 lbs per quart you can have a quart to a gallon of material in the colon.