Rude Science: Everything You've Always Wanted to Know About the Science No One Ever Talks About by Stefan Gates

Author:Stefan Gates [Stefan Gates]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quadrille
Published: 2022-06-29T00:00:00+00:00

*By the way, I urge you to put this down immediately and rush out to buy a copy of Fartology (Quadrille), also by me, which goes into great detail about faeces and even greater detail about farts.

**Most doctors, however, are very clear that they’d like you to stick to Types 3–5.

* * *

5.04 Urine

Depending on diet and levels of physical activity, women produce about 1 litre (1.8 pints) of urine every day whereas men produce about 1.4 litres (2.5 pints). It’s a fantastic tool for getting rid of water-soluble waste, especially nitrogen-rich substances that your cells have generated as by-products of cellular respiration. These include urea (widely used as a fertilizer), uric acid (which can cause gout if you have too much in your blood) and creatinine (a by-product of muscle metabolism). All this nitrogen means that your pee is a fabulous fertilizer, and your garden would thank you for a good dousing with it. You can also mix it together with manure to create potassium nitrate – an essential ingredient in gunpowder, alongside sulphur and charcoal.

The formal word for taking a pee is micturition. The urine you produce is slightly acidic (around pH 6.2) and usually about 95% water. It’s yellow due to the compound urobilin, which is made by the breakdown of old red blood cells. Some people’s urine can turn pink after eating beetroot because their bodies don’t break down the bright red betanin compound that gives beets their rich colour. Asparagus contains sulphurous compounds that can break down to give your pee a rich, funky, earthy smell.

There have been lots of fascinating uses for urine throughout history. It has been used as a cleaning fluid, teeth whitener and for cleaning clothes in ancient Rome – mainly because the urea breaks down into ammonia, which is great for cleaning and also strongly antiseptic. There’s a traditional Chinese dish called tong zi dan, or ‘virgin boy egg’, which is an egg soaked, boiled and then cured in urine collected from young boys. It’s supposed to be good for your health.

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