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Can You Eat Saltpeter? [Yes, No, Maybe]


can you eat saltpeter


Saltpeter is a chemical substance which you might already been consuming without knowing. Because it’s used in a lot of packaged food items widely available in the market.

In today’s post, however we’ll do a deep dive and find out if we can eat saltpeter or not and if so how much is suitable for us.

So let’s get started!

In Short

Yes, humans can eat saltpeter but, considering the dosage of it.

You don’t have to eat a large quantity of it as it’s known to damage the natural body functions and interfere with them which can cause headache, dizziness, fatigue, blue colored skin and lips, cause breathing issues and even death.

The large dosage can also damage kidneys and cause anemia.

You’ve Already Been Fed

You might not know already but, a few kind of packaged food items already contain saltpetre as an active preservative.

It’s most commonly used in curing meats so the frozen meat that you buy from both online and offline store might be using the saltpeter preservatives.

It’s a widely known ingredient for curing meats so you should expect in most meat packaged food or the food which contains the meat in them and some of them are:
·         Burgers
·         Hotdogs with buns
·         Noddle with chicken
·         Chicken burritos
Etc.

How Much Saltpeter Can You Eat Per Day?

This is something not found on the Internet at all but, after a bit of my research I found a way to calculate the amount we can consume per day on the basis of kg (weight) of a person which will vary who’s actually consuming the saltpeter.

Here’s a nice little chart regarding that:
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4804402/
This chart is based on calculation based on body surface area.

So accordingly to this chart and the below source:
“In addition, potassium nitrate is used as a diuretic in pigs, cattle, and horses. It is administered orally doses up to 30 g per animal per day 7.” - https://www.drugbank.ca/drugs/DB11090

So if we take mini pig from the list for example then:
Mini pig dose (mg/kg) to  Human dose (mg/kg) is divide by 1.1.

According to the source mini pig can have a daily dosage of 30 mg of saltpeter per its full body weight which is 40 kilos in this case.

If we convert in to the per kg form that means 40 / 30 = 1.333333333333333 per kg for the mini pig.

Divide this by 1.1 we get 1.212121212121212 for humans per kg.

Now, for example if you weight 60 kg then according to the conversion you can eat (1.212121212121212 * 60 = 72.72727272727273 mg) of saltpeter per day.

But, I’ll recommend to not to go above the 30 mg range just to keep things simple regardless of the body weight and its effects on the human body.

Other Products Which Contains The Saltpeter Chemical

Just to make sure we are on the same page we are talking here about the edible products and not the ones that are not eatable.

Majority of the food industry has been using saltpeter as the active ingredient for their preservative needs and for decades now. Although, nowadays new preservative methods are available which are not that risky at all but, still companies have already invested in larger quantities of it and thus they are having issues neglecting it just yet.

Not something that we eat but, an essential product that we use every day and night and that’s the toothpaste.

It also contains the saltpeter as well.

Wrapping It Up

Can you eat saltpeter? Absolutely. But can you eat saltpeter in larger quantities? Not at all. Because it’s harmful and it’s not suitable any way.

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