Cooking with seawater.

[Wayland]

Has anyone ever tried cooking rice or pasta with seawater?

I've used it for boiling vegetables from time to time and cut with fresh water about half and half it seems fine.

I'm wondering about how much salt the pasta or rice would soak up though?

 

[fred gordon]

Has anyone ever tried cooking rice or pasta with seawater?

I've used it for boiling vegetables from time to time and cut with fresh water about half and half it seems fine.

I'm wondering about how much salt the pasta or rice would soak up though?

My wife, the real cook in the family never adds salt to pasta or rice till near the end of the cooking. If added earlier it can cause things to stick together. I wonder if cooking in sea water would have the same effect? I have cooked mussel etc in it though.

 

[Gailainne]

Gary
from Wikipedia
"On average, seawater in the world's oceans has a salinity of about 3.5%, or 35 parts per thousand, 1 kg of seawater has approximately 35 grams of dissolved salts".

From another site 6g is the daily allowance for men and women.

Its difficult to quantify, your obviously not ingesting the water the food is cooked in, however it will soak up a lot of the salt, from the water, which is 6 times your total daily intake, (assuming a one litre pot)

Not sure what to tell you, apart from take care mate.

Regards

Stephen

 

[Shambling Shaman]

Gary
from Wikipedia
"On average, seawater in the world's oceans has a salinity of about 3.5%, or 35 parts per thousand, 1 kg of seawater has approximately 35 grams of dissolved salts".

From another site 6g is the daily allowance for men and women.

Its difficult to quantify, your obviously not ingesting the water the food is cooked in, however it will soak up a lot of the salt, from the water, which is 6 times your total daily intake, (assuming a one litre pot)

Not sure what to tell you, apart from take care mate.

Regards

Stephen

Some food for thought........

 

[Shambling Shaman]

Had a thought - if you were to boil dry a 1L pot of salt water you would get 35g of salt? or would the boiling reduce this...

 

[Wayland]

Yep that's about right.

As for the salt absorption into the food then a lot depends how much water remains.

Boiling rice until there is not water left would obviously be a problem.

Boiling spuds is no problem at all.

I always add salt to rice or pasta when I'm boiling so I'm not to worried about using some sea water but the question is what sort of ratio.

I use it 1+1 for veg but I might go to 1+2 or 3 for pasta and rice.

 

[Shambling Shaman]

If Gailainne is right then 1:3 would be your daily allowance if 100% is achieved. (Roughly)

 

[y0dsa]

Cooking pasta with seawater? I tried it once and it was thoroughly inedible.
Urgh!

 

[Wayland]

If Gailainne is right then 1:3 would be your daily allowance if 100% is achieved. (Roughly)

That is on the assumption you boil it dry.

I certainly don't do that with pasta and in the wild I use boil in the bag rice which I never run dry so it doesn't get too sticky.

 

[Shambling Shaman]

That is on the assumption you boil it dry.

Yes was going for worse case scenario.

 

[Gailainne]

Its a difficult question to answer, the only perhaps sure way is to test it, however, as stated normal seawater is 6 times (approx 5.8) your total daily intake of salt.

What we are not quantifying is the amount of salt already in whatever is to be cooked, even if there is no added salt, how much does it absorb in the cooking process, it may be chemically something that absorbs salt readily, rather like hydrophilic substances.

I did a google on cooking with salt water and came up with 0

I have never added more than a heavy pinch to any meal I have cooked using water, what that is as a percentage, shrug who knows, perhaps 3 grams, less than a tenth of the equivalent of salt water.

For that ratio sea water to make food palatable would need diluting x 12 with fresh water.

Food for thought indeed.

Regards

Stephen

 

[windward]

I've never had any problems cooking with sea water when sailing long distances, always used a 50/50 mix for boiling rice or pasta...for spuds you can get away using more sea water if you're needing to conserve fresh water.

 

[Gailainne]

I've never had any problems cooking with sea water when sailing long distances, always used a 50/50 mix for boiling rice or pasta...for spuds you can get away using more sea water if you're needing to conserve fresh water.

Interesting, seriously I would have thought those ratios would make food unpalatable. You learn something new every day..thankfully

Cheers for that info its appreciated.

Regards

Stephen

 

[Shambling Shaman]

From a survival point of view - were fresh water my be at a premium this is a interesting topic.

 

[Wayland]

Thanks for that Windward.

Conservation of fresh water is what I was thinking of and that fits well with the guestimate I was making.

Always good to have first hand experience though.

 

[BOD]

I tried it for pasta when sailing and it was awful.

1:1 may be edible but you risk ingesting too much and then reduce your water stocks when you drink to quench the thirst.

The test is not one meal but say two days of using salt water this way

Better do 1:3 or more to be on the safe side.

Try it and tell us

 

[JohnC]

IIRC in my KonTiki book, Thor and the crew mixed sea water with their (rainwater) fresh supplies, they seemed to have plenty of fresh water, but salt depletion was the issue..

 

[Wallenstein]

Mackerel boiled in seawater is a traditional way of cooking - not tried it myself, but I'd have though fish would cope better with the saltiness that starch foods.