Originally Posted By: philip
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a lot of my acquaintances talk about their urinary tract infections has taught me that "urine is sterile" is probably outdated in these days.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.


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.