8 ms·

Not in sea water, it’d be far too salty to be edible. You’d end up drinking more water to compensate.

whathaschanged 9y ago
That sounds like a speculation rather than actual fact. The human body needs salt and there are other minerals in sea water.
- jey 9y ago
  It's simple physics. Think about the volume of seawater being evaporated, which has about 35 g/L of salt in it. Human body needs salt, but too much salt will kill you.
- sitharus 9y ago
  No, it's well known that humans cannot safely ingest the quantity of salt contained in sea water. In a normal situation with available fresh water it would not kill you, but if you were stuck at sea with no fresh water the 35g/L of salt you'd be consuming is way beyond the recommended upper limit of 5g/day. Excess sodium in the bloodstream isn't pleasant: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypernatremia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypernatremia
gvb 9y ago
At one point I wondered how seawater killed you since there isn't anything (directly) toxic in it. Your kidneys excrete the excess salt you ingest. The problem is, sea water has higher salinity than the kidneys can excrete so your kidneys have to excrete more water than you ingested of sea water and you actually die of dehydration. This is why it is so horrible: the more sea water you drink, the more dehydrated you become, the thirstier you get, and the faster you die. Ref: https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/drinksw.html https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/drinksw.html See also salting slugs: http://www.slugoff.co.uk/slug-facts/salt http://www.slugoff.co.uk/slug-facts/salt
spurcell93 9y ago
According to the book "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat" the optimal salinity for pasta water is about 2%. So 1 part sea water, 1 part fresh water - roughly.
- stefantalpalaru 9y ago
  > the optimal salinity for pasta water is about 2% Just 1%, according to the Italian tradition, and that's an upper limit because modern tastes moved towards less salt. The old rule of thumb is known as the 10-100-1000 rule: 10 grams of salt for 100 grams of pasta and 1000 grams (1 litre) of water.

That sounds like a speculation rather than actual fact. The human body needs salt and there are other minerals in sea water.

jey 9y ago
It's simple physics. Think about the volume of seawater being evaporated, which has about 35 g/L of salt in it. Human body needs salt, but too much salt will kill you.
sitharus 9y ago
No, it's well known that humans cannot safely ingest the quantity of salt contained in sea water. In a normal situation with available fresh water it would not kill you, but if you were stuck at sea with no fresh water the 35g/L of salt you'd be consuming is way beyond the recommended upper limit of 5g/day. Excess sodium in the bloodstream isn't pleasant: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypernatremia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypernatremia

gvb 9y ago

At one point I wondered how seawater killed you since there isn't anything (directly) toxic in it. Your kidneys excrete the excess salt you ingest. The problem is, sea water has higher salinity than the kidneys can excrete so your kidneys have to excrete more water than you ingested of sea water and you actually die of dehydration. This is why it is so horrible: the more sea water you drink, the more dehydrated you become, the thirstier you get, and the faster you die. Ref: https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/drinksw.html https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/drinksw.html See also salting slugs: http://www.slugoff.co.uk/slug-facts/salt http://www.slugoff.co.uk/slug-facts/salt

spurcell93 9y ago

According to the book "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat" the optimal salinity for pasta water is about 2%. So 1 part sea water, 1 part fresh water - roughly.

stefantalpalaru 9y ago
> the optimal salinity for pasta water is about 2% Just 1%, according to the Italian tradition, and that's an upper limit because modern tastes moved towards less salt. The old rule of thumb is known as the 10-100-1000 rule: 10 grams of salt for 100 grams of pasta and 1000 grams (1 litre) of water.