Can urine be useful in survival situation?

Read this website it is a good one...Scroll down to the paragraph: No Substitute for Water

I've seen both Bear and Les Stroud do some things with urine. But about the only thing I can think of is, if you've got plenty of it, you're probably doing ok....at least as far as liquids go.

Urine, as distasteful as it may be, has quite a few 'survival' uses. As a material it isn't all that bad. Assuming you don't have a kidney or bladder infection urine is sterile. It is a natural mild astringent and antibacterial or bacteriostatic agent.

It, obviously, comes out warm. It is readily and regularly available in fairly large supplies.

Medical uses:
A pretty well known use is to use it on your own blisters and other raw, debarked, skin. The uric acid and ammonia cause the tender exposed tissue to skin over and to stop stinging and burning.

A related use is to keep intestines or other vital tissues wet so they don't die. Normal saline is generally preferred but given a lack of clean water or other options and exposed intestines that will soon dry out and die urine has long been

I've seen so many opinions on this:
A) yes, drink it
B) no, never drink it
C) drink it only if it is clear

I really don't know what to think to be honest. I guess I'd go with option "C" if I'm really in desperate straights (and have a way to capture it).

In the army, they taught us that urine can be imbibed twice before it becomes toxic. Of course, that was in 1983, so that tidbit could be quite out of date.

I understand that urine is sterile as it comes out of the body, so it's not a source of disease unless it's been sitting or has become chemically toxic.

Urine, as distasteful as it may be, has quite a few 'survival' uses. As a material it isn't all that bad. Assuming you don't have a kidney or bladder infection urine is sterile. It is a natural mild astringent and antibacterial or bacteriostatic agent.

It, obviously, comes out warm. It is readily and regularly available in fairly large supplies.

Medical uses:
A pretty well known use is to use it on your own blisters and other raw, debarked, skin. The uric acid and ammonia cause the tender exposed tissue to skin over and to stop stinging and burning.

A related use is to keep intestines or other vital tissues wet so they don't die. Normal saline is generally preferred but given a lack of clean water or

Seems my post was cropped. I'll try it again. hopefully I'm not triggering the foul language detectors or violating proper decorum. I figure it is pee. Everyone does it every day. Nothing to get grossed out about.

Urine, as distasteful as it may be, has quite a few 'survival' uses. As a material it isn't all that bad. Assuming you don't have a kidney or bladder infection urine is sterile. It is a natural mild astringent and antibacterial or bacteriostatic agent.

It, obviously, comes out warm. It is readily and regularly available in fairly large supplies.

Medical uses:
A pretty well known use is to use it on your own blisters and other raw, debarked, skin. The uric acid and ammonia cause the tender exposed tissue to skin over and to stop stinging and burning.

A related use is to keep intestines or other vital tissues wet so they don't die. Normal saline is generally preferred but given a lack of clean water or other options and exposed intestines that will soon dry out and die urine has long been seen as one of the better options.

Several African tribes that lived in arid areas use urine for washing wounds and to treat fungal and other infections. Seems to work. Urinating on your feet and allowing the urine to dry on them several times a day is sometimes offered as a treatment for athletes foot. Seemed to work and it is both cheap and uses a readily available material.

Mechanics:
Urine was used in Korea to unfreeze various weapons and mechanisms in a pinch. Trick is you have to immediately use it to keep it warm and prevent it from refreezing and to dry it so it doesn't lock up tighter than ever.

Urine was sometimes used to chemically treat some types of metals.

Firefighting:
You can put out a fire with it. It does cause a significant smell.

Tanning:
Urine was sometimes stored by Amer-Indians and used to tan leather.

Gunpowder:
Urine was stored in the south during the Civil War and potassium nitrate extracted and used to make gunpowder. Urine is more productive than manure.

Edited from Wikipedia:

Urination is the primary method for excreting toxins, chemicals and drugs from the body. It is made up of a watery solution of metabolic wastes (such as urea), dissolved salts and organic materials. The fluid contains high concentrations of urea and other excess or potentially toxic substances.

Cellular metabolism results in a buildup of toxic nitrogen compounds, or nitrogenous waste. Since this waste is toxic, most animals have excretory systems (in humans this is known as the Urinary system) to rid themselves of this waste. The kidneys extract the nitrogenous wastes from the bloodstream, as well as excess water, sugars, and a variety of other chemicals.

Shipwrecked or people otherwise adrift at sea for long periods often resort to drinking their urine when no rainwater is available, seawater being unsuitable. People stranded in deserts often also drank urine to prevent life-threatening dehydration from setting in. However, this desperate measure achieves little to delay death from thirst as urine dehydrates one in the same manner saltwater does.


DON'T DRINK IT!

Sue

It can help you tell if you are becoming dehydrated. Dark is bad, clear is good.

Side note; over the years I arrested a jillion drunk drivers who wanted a urine test. EVERY one of those well hydrated drivers had crystal clear urine...

When I was a firefighter we never did this directly although the truck pumper operators were fanatical about NOT running out of water, they would rather pee in the truck water tank then ever allow it to run dry

you could boil it down and make gunpowder--charcoal is
easy--the sulfur might be tricky--

Urine can be distilled to produce pure water.

Urine itself may be sterile, but the means of collecting it can be a likely source of contamination. There is a strong likelihood of staph, yeast, and other contact microbes being present if sound hygenic measures are not maintained during the collection.

Having seen the recommendations against the classic solar still due to its relative ineffectiveness, I have always wondered if introducing wet materials into the still would make it worthwhile. If you soaked some rags w/ urine, or chopped up some moist vegetation, would that make the solar still produce enough water to justify using it?

In Steven Callahan's book "Adrift" he describes using 2 inflatable solar stills in which black cloth was soaked w/ seawater to generate the moisture. IIRC these stills were instrumental in his survival.

Solar stills are not the most effective way of collecting water but if it’s your only way it’s so much better than nothing. Adding moisture or plant matter to the still will increase its effectiveness greatly. However you should be careful what you add to the still, because some contaminates will carry over in the evaporation process.

My copy of the US Army Survival Manual (FM 21-76) says not to drink urine as a substitute for water. It has 2 percent salt, and it requires more cellular water to eliminate the salt than there is water contained in the urine.* The manual also says urine contains harmful body wastes.

Additionally, listening to a lot of my acquaintances talk about their urinary tract infections has taught me that "urine is sterile" is probably outdated in these days. I'm uninterested in being around it, as I do consider it a source of disease.

shrug - my theory is, anything anybody wants to do is okay with me as long as I don't suffer as a result. If people think it's okay to drink urine, I won't argue. If they're right and if I don't drink urine, I'll die and they'll live to tell the tale. If I'm right, they'll die and I may live to tell the tale.

*The manual says seawater is 4% salt, and our body requires 2 quarts of the body's fluids to rid itself of the salt in 1 quart of sea water. It says not to use these items as substitutes for water: alcohol, urine, blood, and seawater.

Solar stills are only ineffective if the body moisture required to build one exceeds the amount of water gained, such as in most arid environments. They are useful in conditions where the ground is wet and the air within is evaporative, either because of ambiant heat or direct sunlight. Try one on a sunny mudflat. I guess it would work very well.

While urine is ~95% water, and generally sterile for a little while, I agree that urine is bad to drink. Not only does it create the need to drink more water to offset the salt content, it does contain toxins, such as urea, which is less toxic than ammonia which is formed after it leaves the body; and these are forced to go through the kidneys a second time, only this time at more concentrated levels, which is bad in the long run. Also, urine is not always exactly sterile, as some diseases can be transmitted via urine, such as some forms of hepatitis, and also the bacteria from urinary and kidney infection.
Although, adding urine to a solar still can increase efficiency.
Urine can be reabsorbed within the body and recycled when the body becomes dehydrated. I think that if you have enough water in your body that you can urinate, you are not in immediate danger of dehydration, otherwise it would be recycled within and not expelled. Drinking urine as an emergency measure is ineffective and is nothing more than an absurd psychology. And those who drink it for health reasons are as equally misinformed.

Last summer I made a sucessful Solar Still Here, and though I did not use urine had I done so I am sure the H20 it contained would have evaporated on the plastic just as well as the water contained in the sand.

Also, once you make the still you can use it day after day with little extra effort. I might envision having a half dozen working for you at the same time. Better than nothing if you are not on the move.

There's a fellow named Jenkins, who is the author of the humorous and enlightening "Humanure Handbook," in which he complains about the rampant "fecophobia" that is so heavily entrenched in our culture. Jenkins doesn't mention the problem "uro-phobia," but I'm sure that he would see a definite parallel between these two related concepts.

It turns out the urine may have some important value after all.

http://www.urinetherapeutics.com/index.htm "Introduction to Urine therapy. The first question that probably comes to mind is whether urine is not a toxic substance and how a toxic waste product could ever be of any benefit for your health. Well, urine is not a toxic waste product and this has been scientifically proven. 95% of urine is water, 2.5% consists of urea and the remaining 2.5% is a mixture of minerals, salt, hormones and enzymes. Toxic substances are being removed from the body through the liver and intestines, through the skin and through the outbreath. The main function of the kidneys is to keep the composition of the blood in optimal balance. When there is too much water, the kidneys will remove it. But that doesn't make water into a toxic waste product."

LW.

From the site's "precautions" page:


http://www.urinetherapeutics.com/precautions.htm

Who wrote this Web site? If I'm so dehydrated I'm drinking urine, what do I do about diarrhea and vomiting? Drink more urine to replace the lost fluids? And what about sweating because of the fever which appears to result from drinking urine?

Who wrote this Web site?

Anyway - as I said, whoever wants to drink their urine can have at it. I'm not popping their pimples, lancing their boils, and changing their underwear though.

With all due respect to "urinetherapeutics" the one use for urine I conspicuously didn't include was drinking it. Gandhi, and not a few others, are free to drink their own urine. There is an entire industry out there dealing with drinking urine and other more recreational uses.

Insert the term "urinetherapeutics" and/or "golden shower" into any search engine and you will get more than and eye-full. Other than a passing interest and cursory examination on my part, for purely educational purposes I assure you, I don't go that way.

I do note that, as far as I can tell, Gandhi and the others consuming or having fun with their urine are not in situations where water is in short supply. Probably a good thing. I imagine after drinking urine or otherwise playing in it I would be looking for some fresh water to wash out my mouth and take a long shower in.

I also have my doubts as to the effective truth of the claim that "urine is not a toxic substance". OK I realize that most people, as long as they chase their urine with sufficient water, don't get poisoned by it. And I'm also aware that certain cultures, outside the wilder side of the sex industry, do consume urine for various reasons.

Inuit medicine men are said to harvest a rare fungi that has hallucinogenic properties. To get the most use of the plant the compound is reused. The urine excreted after the drug is given is carefully collected and reused on the next patient. Evidently the hallucinogen is not broken down by the body and it remains very much chemically effective through several uses.

This came to mind reading about some modern problems. First was antibiotic resistance. Many antibiotics remain intact through the body and are excreted primarily in the urine. Currently most are simply flushed away and dispersed into the environment. It is well documented that many of the most widely used antibiotics show up in significant concentrations in the nations waterways. Come to find out antibiotics survive sewage treatment also.

Which strikes me as a pretty good way of making sure that resistance to that particular antibiotic will develop quickly and become widespread across a wide cross-section of bacteria. Flushed down a toilet the antibiotic is greatly diluted and exposed to a variety of bacteria from other humans.

Another thought is that some of the more exotic antibiotics are very expensive.

It sounds to me like it would produce positive results on both ends if persons taking these rarer antibiotics were confined to a structure with a dedicated sewage treatment facility. One where the sewerage is incinerated or otherwise treated in such a way that the antibiotics are completely destroyed so they are not released into the environment. Some thought to the collection of and recycling of antibiotics, or other medical compounds, from urine might also be looked into.

Perhaps the Inuit medicine-men were on to something when they practiced their radical recycling.

"Well, urine is not a toxic waste product and this has been scientifically proven."

Actually, urine IS a waste product, and it HAS been scientifically proven. Just because someone with a website who is trying to make a buck off some crackpot theory of drinking urine or rubbing s**t on your skin or spitting into the wind says different, doesn't make it so.

I have a second cousin who has a website on palmistry here: http://www.handanalysis.net/

But he doesn't have either my belief or any of my money.

Sue

Ya gotta watch those second cousins...

OBG, it just KILLS me how he's raking in the big bucks on that scam. Here, Europe, it doesn't matter. People are standing in line to give him their money, and it's not small change, either.

Sue

As long as a person places money over people you can convince them of anything. I think Barnum was the one to say "there's a sucker born every minute"

I can't believe the subject of human placentophagy hasn't been brought up in this thread yet...

Jim

Ugh!!!

You can marry second cousins in many locations. Then there is divoce and spousal support (aka alimony). Something crappy for you to consider...

"placentophagy"

It has been done for practical reason, decreased recovery time, higher survival rates and, increased maternal health, for several thousand years. I have a nice recipe for a stew.

Yuck!

Yuck indeed. But my ex gets 44% of my retirement, which can't be sneezed at...