Tuesday 6 December 2016

proteins - Can you get enough water by eating only fish?


Scenario: In a boat in the middle of the sea, no freshwater or food stores, no desalination equipment, no rain, but you can catch fish and eat it raw. Can you get enough water this way to survive, let's say for 14 days? (Enough clothes to protect against cold, shade available)


2, 000 g of raw Pacific cod contains 1,650 mL water, 350 g protein, 2,200 mg sodium (source: usda.gov)


By my calculation, you would need to excrete 2,800 mL of urine to excrete urea from protein metabolism (8 mL urine per 1 g protein; source: nap.edu), so after eating fish you would be in the negative water balance for more than 1,150 mL solely from urea.



My questions are strictly about fish as a water source, not about other water sources or survival time:



  1. Does protein really expel so much urine that makes fish an inappropriate source of water?

  2. Any other appropriate source of water from fish, apart from eyeballs? Can you somehow squeeze the water from fish?




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