how much salt would it take to kill a small victorian child?
your questions on salt toxicity answered
would you love me if i were a grain of salt?
About a year ago now, my fyp was full of videos of people asking their partners “would you still love me if I was a worm?” The question in and of itself is a Catch-22, if their partner would reply no, the question asker gets offended, communicating the underlying message:
if they wouldn’t accept me in a state where I was slimy and wriggly and insect-like, then they clearly don’t love me enough
If their partner said ,
yes, of course I would love you as a worm, I would feed you the finest leaves, and build you your very own worm-size appropriate mansion.
Well, then they’ve not only just publicly outed themselves as an insect lover but also made themselves available to internet scrutiny for life.
It’s sweet, sorta? But I guess this is what love does to you? While we’re on the topic and because this is Salt Stack, it seems fitting to ask you all the question:
would you love me if i were a grain of salt?
i already know your answer, don’t you worry. Anyways, let’s talk about grains of salt and salt toxicity, shall we?
how many grains of salt are there in your average salt shaker?
Since the table salt vessels you find in store vary drastically in size and volume we’re going to be using the average restaurant salt shaker as a point of reference.
These salt shakers have an estimated volume of 100-120mL but for the sake of simplifying our calculations, we’re sticking with 100mL. Now, let’s breakdown density and mass and do a cutesy little equation:
Volume of salt in shaker: 100 mL
Density of table salt: 2.16 g/mL
Mass of salt in shaker: 100 mL × 2.16 g/mL = 216 g of salt
Average mass of one grain of table salt: 0.0000585 g
Total number of grains:
216 g ÷ 0.0000585 g per grain = 3.7 million grains (approximately)
I’m not even going to lie to you, I feel like an academic weapon for doing an equation. And wow, that’s a whole lot of grains of salt. But my next question is, how much of a supposedly full salt shaker can I pour out on to my food before it kills me? This leads me on to our next (and my favourite topic for today) salt toxicity!
salt toxicity: how much salt can actually kill you?
I have a new word for your vocabulary, team. Introducing, h y p e r n a t r e m i a, the word for when there’s to much sodium and too little water in your system and you DIE.
To understand how excessive salt consumption turns into fatality there are factors like height, weight, and pre-existing conditions to consider. The amount of salt it takes to kill you, varies but here’s a breakdown of what happens when you consume the whole salt shaker before salt-induced hypernatremia takes over.
If the average adult consumes:
Less than 35 g → leads to extreme thirst and/or nausea.
35–100 g → leads to vomiting, confusion, and a possible risk of seizures.
100–210 g (the nearly full salt shaker) → potentially lethal consumption
Anything over 216 g → Death is very very likely but you might live with medical intervention
so there you have it, the restaurant salt shaker is a lethal weapon. Death by salt isn’t exactly a common occurrence, so you don’t need to stop using soy sauce anytime soon. According to a research study on salt-based fatalities, many of the recorded deaths by sodium in adults come down to a couple main causes:
Exorcism rituals: we’ll get into the nitty gritty of this in a future Salt Stack post, but just know it’s crazyyy
Mistaken for sugar: this one’s valid in my opinion
Emetic: something you take to cause vomiting, either medically or self- administered. This is usually given to someone who’s co-ingested something else.
how much salt would it take to kill a small, victorian child?
Now to answer this question we need to look at this differently and some consider some of the historical factors at play here. Modern day children are more accustomed to things like food dyes and copious amounts of salt and sugar whereas the victorian child would get a sugar rush from eating one too many prunes. The small, victorian child is also a victim to the questionable medicine of this time period and possible malnourishment. All things considered, what would be fatal to the modern day child, of around 5 years old approximately 60 grams of salt (10 teaspoons) would be fatal.
And for the 5 year old victorian child, approximately 45 grams (8 teaspoons) with consideration for lack of medical knowledge. Oh victorian children, so fragile, so prone to death.
thank you, thank you, and thank you again
still surprised, shocked, aghast, and all that so many of you want to be here and receive my silly little salt (and sometimes life) emails. Thank you for being here. And if you are one of the subscribers that actually know me in person and you let me know you subscribed and i got all red and flustered and immediately changed the subject. Just know that’s my strange Kaci way of saying “thanks”.
get ready, there’s so much to come
there’s about to be interviews, recipes, and SO MUCH MORE. Plus, exclusive content for my paid subscribers (yess get excited).
Stay tuned for next weeks Substack that will be a little more about life than about salt.
logging off now, i’ll see ya next time crew.
Sayanora,
Kaci C.
salt shakers - new fear unlocked