Rationing water is pointless as its better stored inside you rather than in your canteen.Sipping water is also pointless other than to wet your mouth.Water uptake is done not in the stomach but in the large intestine particularly the phyloric sphincter.Until you blast water into this muscle it just sits in your stomach doing very little.You are better off to gorge yourself to the point of being sick in order to achieve maximum hydration and should have a clear urine output at least 5-6 times daily.
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Water Rationing
- Thread starter Cutler
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Mr. Dove,
This is highly contingent upon weather conditions where you are. From my expreince in Brazil a half liter of water on a hot day, even laying around, would not keep you from severe dehydration for more than a day or two.
When I think of rationing water sensibly would mean not drinking so much of it that your body has to flush it out to maintain your balance. Ideally you should be drinking enough that your urine is clear and frequent. If you don't have alot of water you have to drink enough of it to prevent yourself from suffering dehydration WHILE YOU SEARCH FRO WATER. Once your urine turns to a darker than normal shade of yellow you are sunk as far as further physical exertion goes. At that point drinking a few capfulls of water will do nothing to turn the situation around. You have run out of water once your urine is dark yellow.
After this stage you will become seriously incapacitated. Drinking a half liter once you have a 10% body weight loss is a help but far from the hospital stay you're going to need. Mac
This is highly contingent upon weather conditions where you are. From my expreince in Brazil a half liter of water on a hot day, even laying around, would not keep you from severe dehydration for more than a day or two.
When I think of rationing water sensibly would mean not drinking so much of it that your body has to flush it out to maintain your balance. Ideally you should be drinking enough that your urine is clear and frequent. If you don't have alot of water you have to drink enough of it to prevent yourself from suffering dehydration WHILE YOU SEARCH FRO WATER. Once your urine turns to a darker than normal shade of yellow you are sunk as far as further physical exertion goes. At that point drinking a few capfulls of water will do nothing to turn the situation around. You have run out of water once your urine is dark yellow.
After this stage you will become seriously incapacitated. Drinking a half liter once you have a 10% body weight loss is a help but far from the hospital stay you're going to need. Mac
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Edited to elaborate a little.
Your body always attempts to maintain homeostasis. When the amount of water in your system exceeds your needs, it is excreted in urine. Gorging yourself on limited water supplies is reckless at best and deadly at worst. You'll piss it all out the first couple days, and then you're out of water.
Gorging yourself really only applies when your canteens are running low while travelling and you come upon a good water supply.
It also has to be elaborated that drinking a lot of water will make a case of dehydration WORSE, not better. You also need electrolytes for water reabsorbtion by the kidneys, and you need some glucose for uptake of electrolytes. Drinking more water will just wash out even more of your limited electrolytes, causing more water to be lost, and so on.
You also don't want to use something like Gatorade for rehydration, as it's much too high in carbohydrate (which slows gastric emptying and in cases of vomiting/diarrhea may exacerbate fluid loss) and too low in sodium, potassium, and base. Gatorade is fine for sweat replacement in a healthy individual, provided dehydration has not yet taken place.
Pedialyte (or a similar product) is much better than sports drinks for rehydration.
In cases of dehydration where Pedialyte is unavailable, the CDC recommends the following oral replacement cocktail, prepared in two separate glasses.
Glass 1:
8 ounces fruit juice (orange, apple, etc,) that is rich in potassium
1/2 teaspoon honey or corn syrup (glucose necessary for absorbtion of essential salts)
1 pinch table salt
Glass 2:
8 ounces water (carbonated or adequately purified (not an issue here))
1/4 teaspoon baking soda (sodium bicarbonate)
Drink alternately from each glass, supplementing with water or tea as desired. Avoid solid foods and milk until recovered (that part mostly applies to cases of vomiting/diarrhea)
If you don't have all those ingredients available, you can also use the Poor Man's rehydration drink, which is a can of ginger ale diluted 1:1 with water, and a pinch each of sugar and salt.
marsupial said:
Your body always attempts to maintain homeostasis. When the amount of water in your system exceeds your needs, it is excreted in urine. Gorging yourself on limited water supplies is reckless at best and deadly at worst. You'll piss it all out the first couple days, and then you're out of water.
Gorging yourself really only applies when your canteens are running low while travelling and you come upon a good water supply.
It also has to be elaborated that drinking a lot of water will make a case of dehydration WORSE, not better. You also need electrolytes for water reabsorbtion by the kidneys, and you need some glucose for uptake of electrolytes. Drinking more water will just wash out even more of your limited electrolytes, causing more water to be lost, and so on.
You also don't want to use something like Gatorade for rehydration, as it's much too high in carbohydrate (which slows gastric emptying and in cases of vomiting/diarrhea may exacerbate fluid loss) and too low in sodium, potassium, and base. Gatorade is fine for sweat replacement in a healthy individual, provided dehydration has not yet taken place.
Pedialyte (or a similar product) is much better than sports drinks for rehydration.
In cases of dehydration where Pedialyte is unavailable, the CDC recommends the following oral replacement cocktail, prepared in two separate glasses.
Glass 1:
8 ounces fruit juice (orange, apple, etc,) that is rich in potassium
1/2 teaspoon honey or corn syrup (glucose necessary for absorbtion of essential salts)
1 pinch table salt
Glass 2:
8 ounces water (carbonated or adequately purified (not an issue here))
1/4 teaspoon baking soda (sodium bicarbonate)
Drink alternately from each glass, supplementing with water or tea as desired. Avoid solid foods and milk until recovered (that part mostly applies to cases of vomiting/diarrhea)
If you don't have all those ingredients available, you can also use the Poor Man's rehydration drink, which is a can of ginger ale diluted 1:1 with water, and a pinch each of sugar and salt.
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I carry packets of a product called Emer'gen-C which is rich in many of the needed vitamins and minerals including potassium. When I'm dehydraded, I empty a couple of packets into a cup of water. There are 6.8 carbs total in the two packets, but now knowing what I know, I'll eat a little honey, which I usually have in my gear.
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At the very least, if none of those things are available, mix a teaspoon of table salt and a tablespoon of sugar in 1 liter of water and sip it over 1 hour.
MelancholyMutt, it's in FM21-76, Army Survival Manual. I admit that not everything you read in an FM, AR, TB or other document by the military is absolutely current "state of the art" but I'd be interested in what prompted your comment about an absence of "military wisdom." Let me guess, you were an enlisted soldier and everybody was out to get you, especially junior officers?
Bruce
Bruce
MelancholyMutt
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Actualy bruce, it's usually the enlisted men who swears by the manuals... the officers tend to know better.
I just looked in my copy in Chapter 6 page 1 where it says that you need a minimum of 2 liters even in cold weather. Which page, and which year version book do you have?I'm not trying to attack your post... I'm simply trying to get to the bottom of this survival discussion.
I just looked in my copy in Chapter 6 page 1 where it says that you need a minimum of 2 liters even in cold weather. Which page, and which year version book do you have?I'm not trying to attack your post... I'm simply trying to get to the bottom of this survival discussion.
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During WW2, for Operation Torch in North Africa I believe, U.S. troops were subjected to an experimental program of what basically amounted to increasing rationing of water. Many men died. It was a failure.
I think water rationing just depends on the situation. If you are, say, staying in one place, doing very little, and simply waiting for rescue (rather rare), then water rationing, to some degree, probably wouldn't be such a bad idea (because you wouldn't need full alertness levels, physical strength, etc., and you may need to wait there a long time). However, in almost any other situation water rationing is probably a bad idea. You need full strength and alertness, especially at the beginning of a survival situation when you're deciding your course of action, building a shelter, making a fire, making signals, locating food and water, etc.
And yes, DON'T EAT unless you have plenty of water! You can surivive, as the old saying goes, perhaps 3 weeks without food, but only 3 days without water, and eating dehydrates you.
I've heard differing viewpoints on urine-drinking, but for the most part I've heard that its salinity levels mean that it actually dehydrates you, for your body needs more water to purify it that can be taken from it. I've heard the same thing about blood.
I think water rationing just depends on the situation. If you are, say, staying in one place, doing very little, and simply waiting for rescue (rather rare), then water rationing, to some degree, probably wouldn't be such a bad idea (because you wouldn't need full alertness levels, physical strength, etc., and you may need to wait there a long time). However, in almost any other situation water rationing is probably a bad idea. You need full strength and alertness, especially at the beginning of a survival situation when you're deciding your course of action, building a shelter, making a fire, making signals, locating food and water, etc.
And yes, DON'T EAT unless you have plenty of water! You can surivive, as the old saying goes, perhaps 3 weeks without food, but only 3 days without water, and eating dehydrates you.
I've heard differing viewpoints on urine-drinking, but for the most part I've heard that its salinity levels mean that it actually dehydrates you, for your body needs more water to purify it that can be taken from it. I've heard the same thing about blood.
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Andrew Lynch said:
A great question. I posed this question elsewhere, and I'll get back to you with the answer if nobody answers it satisfactorily first.
In the meantime, I'd like to add on the subject of urine that although it is sterile when it enters the urinary bladder, it picks up a lot of potentially harmful hitchhikers on its way through the urethra, which normally houses a lot of microbes. For this reason, you should not drink it directly and you should NEVER use urine to cleanse an open wound, despite what some of the survival manuals say. (They neglect the trip through the urethra in their reasoning.)
As for drinking it, I understand that the naturepath types who do so recommend drinking only the midstream to possibly reduce the number of microbes. How well this works, I couldn't tell you.
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Rationing water is never a good thing. You should spend the water you have finding/generating more.
Like I read further up, NEVER eat if you don't have sufficient water. It takes around 33oz. or water to digest 4oz. of food. Otherwise it just sits there and plugs up.
Like I read further up, NEVER eat if you don't have sufficient water. It takes around 33oz. or water to digest 4oz. of food. Otherwise it just sits there and plugs up.