No digestive track? Or just REALLY good food?

[the phantom]

Oh, come on. Tolkien definitely made mention of outhouses and the like. Why do you think Bilbo made sure there was a huge tree inside the main party tent? How did Gollum track Sam and Frodo so easily? Why was the water below Faramir's hideout called the "Forbidden Pool"?

Think about it.

On one occasion in particular JRRT tactfully described a, uh, moment of relief.

FOTR, Lothlorien-

For a moment Frodo stood near the brink (of Nimrodel) and let the water flow over his tired feet... he felt that the stain of travel and all weariness was washed from his limbs.

Why would Frodo stop in a stream, I ask you? It's not difficult to figure out. Tolkien says he found relief from "ALL weariness", which would include the weariness of holding it. And Tolkien also mentioned Frodo's "limbs". I don't think he meant just arms and legs.

Also, do you recall when Frodo and Sam leave the road in Mordor to head straight at Mt Doom, and Sam says to Frodo, "Why not lighten the load a bit?" What do you think he was speaking of?

Oh, sure, they toss aside their orc gear and cooking equipment, but don't you think Tolkien was implying that the two hobbits dropped more than equipment into the pit?

And what about the Ring and the story itself as a whole? Surely you realize that LOTR is symbolic of an individual desperate to use the restroom after having consumed an unsettling meal. The food causing the intestinal disturbance is represented by "evil". The result of "evil" is The Ring, or diarrhea. Mount Doom, of course, represents a toilet, large and powerful enough to handle having even the most severe "evil" dumped into it. Frodo's struggle to contain the power of The Ring is agonizingly easy to understand for anyone who has ever had tortured bowels and is unable to locate a restroom.

What a shame it is that Frodo controls it for miles upon miles and actually makes it all the way to the stall, you might say, and then while standing upon the very rim of the bowl, loses control, and is forever stained.