Teach Me Something Tuesday #21

How many silica packets would I need to eat in order to absorb all the water in my body?

Okay, so you know those silica packets they put in shoeboxes and bottles of vitamins? Well silica is actually silicon dioxide (SiO₂), which is the same material that makes up quartz. It’s essentially really porous sand and capable of absorbing 40% of its weight in moisture. While technically harmless to eat, eating one of those packets would give you a serious case of dry mouth.

So how many packets would you have to eat to absorb all the water in your body? Let’s say for example that I weigh 195 pounds. (Hypothetically speaking of course.) Since the human body is 70% water, there is 136.5 pounds of water in my hypothetical body. Therefore, it would require 341.25 pounds of silica to absorb all the water. Since a single packet of silica weighs 0.1 ounces, that means I would have to eat 54,600 silica packets.

It doesn’t exactly sound like the best way to do yourself in if you ask me. Something tells me I wouldn’t make it past packet #2. And who has the money to buy 54,600 pairs of shoes to get all those packets in the first place?

Source: What If…?: 75 Fascinating Questions and Answers

Thanks Michelle!

NOW TELL ME SOMETHING I DON’T KNOW!