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It's been an odd summer. My kid (he's ten) is kicking my butt at Blackjack. We've had three (no exaggeration - I have kept careful, edging into pre-suicidal, seasonal-affective-mood-altered track) sunny days since July first. My elderly dog keeps getting her head stuck under my bed at 3 a.m.
This is my lifeline:
The Epicurious Caramel Cake That Will Change Your Life
She doesn't look like much, this unfussy, beige little cake. Just go with it. It is milky, creamy, sweet and caramelly without being cloying. Cut it into small squares and you'll find you've eaten some 14 pieces before anyone else even knows it's there.
Also known as "You want to do what?"
We know from watching Bear Grylls to go traipsing about in the tundra that life in the wild involves drinking raw bug guts and eating the hot, dripping entrails of some fluffy, arctic bunny you caught and gnashed to death with your bare teeth. We understand that the brutality of nature often demands a brutal (or at least creative) response. And yet we must admit to a dark fascination with how remarkably often it seems Mr. Grylls finds a reason to drink his own urine. When his canteen is empty, when the moon waxes full, when the breeze changes direction ever-so-slightly, it seems one suddenly finds Mr. Grylls rather eagerly hoisting a flask of nature’s finest.
Could we do this? Would we do this? While we sometimes do venture outside, where people seem somehow compelled by circumstances beyond their control to drink urine, we hope to never be caught hungry (or worse, dear lord, thirsty) on some beverage-deficient tundra. But if we were, and had we the urine-drinking reflexes of Mr. Grylls, yes, God help us, we just might do it. When you're life-threateningly parched, drinking your own wretched urine can help you live an extra few days, delaying your death by dehydration, and death by dehydration is a nasty way to go.
Of course, that’s an extra handful of days living with the knowledge that you are a big old pee drinker.
Urine, as you know, is the liquid waste secreted by your kidneys. The ancient Romans used urine to brighten their teeth, while in Scotland urine was used to prevent wool from shrinking. Urine was big in ancient Egypt, China and India, where the Former Prime Minister of India, Morarji Desai, a proponent of urine drinking, lived to 99 and stated that India would be better off if more of its people used this effective, inexpensive home remedy. Even now, there are many people who believe in urine therapy as a topical treatment for wound care, a tonic to improve skin tone and an alternative medicine for any number of ills. According to the Chinese news agency Xinhua, more than three million Chinese citizens drink their own urine. So what's the big deal? A Prime minister drank it. Bear Grylls drinks it. Maybe (stay with us here) it’s not so gross. Maybe? And yet, even one of the many official Army Field Manuals, all of which are full of helpful advice for survival, specifically lists urine as a "DO NOT drink" in the same nonpotable category as blood and seawater.
If you are healthy, your urine is sterile and contains about 95 percent water. It’s that other 5 percent that is chock full of waste products, and your body has been clearing them for a reason (though if you ask urinophiles, they say that last 5 percent is chock full of antibodies, but they are adamantly pro-peepee going into this argument). So, let’s say you are stuck in some godforsaken wilderness and you are thirsty beyond your wildest imaging. Thirsty enough to drink your own urine. Really, really thirsty. Why not go for it? Well, here’s where it can be an issue: You somehow go ahead and choke down your own urine. Now that urine is back in your system and finds its way again to your poor, beleaguered kidneys, still loaded with all of that junk your kidneys were trying to rid themselves of. You really need other fluids to flush that out, and without those other fluids, just drinking and re-drinking the same urine? You can, in quite short a time, cause the same symptoms as kidney failure, including headache, muscle pain, nausea, vomiting and no desire to eat. (Also? Everyone you meet hands you a breath mint). Though how can we begrudge you some nausea? You just drank pee.
Another option, if you are stuck on that tundra and hankering for liquid refreshment, is to drink someone else’s urine (this is definitely easier if you are stranded with someone to whom you've previously been introduced), if only to give your kidneys some new chemical mix. How you are going to ask some stranger for a urine swap, however, is not covered in the more traditional etiquette books.
In case this all sounds just swell and you feel you are now free to enjoy your easy-peasy hot toddy, know that in Ohio, legislation was recently passed making it illegal to collect (and then drink) someone’s urine without their knowledge. Because more important than laws are manners: A lady always asks first.
