Depending on family history, eating a lot of small hard foods like peanuts and sunflower seeds may put you at risk for diverticulitis.

You have small pockets of tissue in your large intestine that can allow small, undigested pieces of food to get stuck. If it hangs out there too long, it may harbor bacteria that will grow and then you end up with acute lower abdominal pain that could turn into a life-threatening problem akin to apendicitis.