This article is about drinking sea water for nutritional and medical purposes.
I do not encourage anybody to drink sea water without doing their research!
Things change. All the time. In fact, do we really know much more than that? Things around us – and inside of us – are constantly changing. Sometimes, though, things change more radically and dramatically than usually.
From time to time we find information that goes against everything we have learned and yet, at the same time, there is a feeling that even though it sounds completely crazy, it may just be true.
All my life I knew for a fact that you can NOT drink sea water. I even knew that in an emergency at sea it would in fact be better to drink nothing instead of sea water. The salt in the water will actually hasten dehydration, instead of alleviating it. And while this is true, things are not that simple.
Then, a bit more than a year ago, I started to hear about people drinking sea water. And while it sounded just so wrong, at the same time it sounded oh so liberating and true! I should mention that all my life I have added salt to my food BEFORE even trying. Every. Single. Time.
So the idea of drinking salt water might have sounded less crazy to me than to other people, at least once I realized that what I had been told all my life was not something everybody agreed upon. For some reason drinking sea water seems to be much more common in the Spanish speaking world. Here is a little video in English I found:
And since I had been very interested in natural healing for quite some time, I started to do some research on this topic. And yes, there are people who drink sea water, mainly for its medical benefits. Quite a lot people actually. And NO, they do not drink it exclusively. Not by any means.
Some people drink it pure and make sure they drink enough sweet water as well, some people mix it, some people use it for cooking, and some people water their plants with it. Some people claim the many different salts in sea water are essential for our bodies, others outright claim it can heal pretty much every illness known to man.
I drink sea water. And I like it a lot. When I don't drink sea water for some time, I start to miss it. I feel very good about it and most of all, I am very happy to have been lucky enough to have my views on something shattered and remade once again.
When I swim in the ocean now, I most certainly take a good sip of sea water. Sometimes I take a couple of liters back home and drink from that whenever I feel like it. Sometimes a glass, sometimes just a sip. One of the greatest aspects of it is cooking, though. Instead of putting salt into the water for pasta or rice, it is wonderful to mix some sea water in. The mixture, of course, depends on how salty you want the food to be.
My experience so far is not enough to give testament to its medicinal properties. All I can say is that I like it and will keep drinking it. It makes me feel good and somehow I feel like I have finally found a new and abundant source of salt, which I have always had a strong craving for.
Your Ideas and experiences and additional information are very welcome!