# What chemical compounds can you safely drink?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-chemical-compounds-can-you-safely-drink/692861
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [July 11, 2014, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-chemical-compounds-can-you-safely-drink/692861 "2014-07-11T15:27:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Ignotus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignotus)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2014, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-chemical-compounds-can-you-safely-drink/692861/21 "2014-07-11T23:02:46Z")
> [@](#):
>
> lazybratsche Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) is borderline. It’s a solvent commonly used to deliver that are insoluble in water, though I don’t know if that’s done with pharmaceuticals given to humans (as opposed to the fruit flies, nematodes, and cell cultures that I am drugging). It’s also used as a cryoprotectant, to freeze living cells. Wiki quotes a dose of 0.3 mL/kg as the point of noticeable toxicity, while rodent LD50 is 8-28 g/kg. So a 60 mL shot glass would probably be a bad idea but wouldn’t kill you.
Thank you, I stand corrected.
> [@](#):
>
> Isilder
> Well for the purpose of clarity, you could breath perfluorodecalin, as in fill your lung space with it , only if it had sufficient oxygen dissolved into it. It does love to carry gases, but if it wasn’t exposed to oxygen then its going to suck the O2 out of your blood…
Well, no, it doesn’t magically transform into oxygen in your body, does it? Point is, it doesn’t cause lethal harm to your lung tissue, as most liquid solvents (including, indeed, pure distilled water!) probably would.
> [@](#):
>
> The same problem occurs if you drink it… notionally non-saturated (didn’t achieve equilibrium with air dissolved into it) perfluorodecalin is dangerous as it would starve you of O2.
Cite for this please (or calculation!) I am aware that oxygen is, indeed, very soluble in the stuff, but would you actually risk hypoxemia from drinking a shot-glass of it _as long as you were able to breathe all along_?
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### Author:  [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2014, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-chemical-compounds-can-you-safely-drink/692861/22 "2014-07-11T23:13:04Z")
Liz Phair has a health recommendation for a pure liquid substance to drink for helping to clear skin, make hair shiny and generally feel nice. Do not look up what it is while at work. I was shocked when I heard the song.
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### Author:  [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2014, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-chemical-compounds-can-you-safely-drink/692861/23 "2014-07-11T23:17:22Z")
> [@eltro102](#):
>
> I’m sure a shot glass of mercury would be fine considering how widely it was used
A glass of warm gallium would be a tad safer, though metallic mercury probably wouldn’t cause serious problems either.
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### Author:  [@Saltire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saltire)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2014, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-chemical-compounds-can-you-safely-drink/692861/24 "2014-07-11T23:41:36Z")
As I understand it, one of the reasons chloroflourocarbon refrigerants were so widely used is that they were nontoxic (as well as noncorrosive and nonconductive). I don’t know enough to say you could drink it, but maybe you could.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2014, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-chemical-compounds-can-you-safely-drink/692861/25 "2014-07-12T03:20:12Z")
**The Second Stone** , you’re going to need to give us a little more than that to Google for.
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### Author:  [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2014, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-chemical-compounds-can-you-safely-drink/692861/26 "2014-07-12T03:49:02Z")
The name of the song is HWC
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### Author:  [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2014, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-chemical-compounds-can-you-safely-drink/692861/27 "2014-07-12T04:27:21Z")
I am pretty sure that semen is chemically complex.
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### Author:  [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2014, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-chemical-compounds-can-you-safely-drink/692861/28 "2014-07-12T07:36:46Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#):
>
> I think most petroleum-based oils are going to be reasonably safe to drink a shot glass full of. Gasoline [is] probably not going to kill you or cause severe damage with a few sips.
Gasoline and Kerosine are corrosive. My guess is acid, since you make lubricant soaps by reacting petroleum-based oils with metals. If you drink gasoline, do not induce vomiting: you will get burned on the way up as well as on the way down. Treat ingested gasoline or kerosine with copious water and activated charcol
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### Author:  [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2014, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-chemical-compounds-can-you-safely-drink/692861/29 "2014-07-12T08:34:58Z")
I hear that you can drink small amounts of liquid nitrogen and you’ll be fine.
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### Author:  [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2014, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-chemical-compounds-can-you-safely-drink/692861/30 "2014-07-12T08:42:25Z")
> [@Jragon](#):
>
> I hear that you can drink small amounts of liquid nitrogen and you’ll be fine.
DON’T DO THIS!
> **[Liquid nitrogen cocktail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_nitrogen_cocktail)**
>
> A liquid nitrogen cocktail is any mixed drink whose preparation involves the use of liquid nitrogen. Popularized as a novelty because of the smoky, bubbling "cauldron effect" it produces, liquid nitrogen is controversial as a cocktail ingredient because it boils at −196 °C (77 K; −321 °F) and its consumption is thus potentially lethal. However, it is not a regulated substance in most countries and there is little control of its use.
> The culinary use of liquid nitrogen is mentioned in an 1890 rec...
I realize your post might be sarcasm but I’m unsure of the purpose of this thread.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2014, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-chemical-compounds-can-you-safely-drink/692861/31 "2014-07-12T13:24:41Z")
To be clear, it _is_, in all seriousness, possible to drink small quantities of liquid nitrogen without harm. The safe amount, however, is extremely small, such that it would be all too easy to accidentally drink a dangerously large amount, and the experiment should therefore not be deliberately conducted.
And to **Doctor Jackson** :
> [@](#):
>
> I’m a bit confused. In the OP you asked about “chemical compounds” - pretty much everything you eat or drink is a chemical compound.
No. Everything you eat or drink is a mixture of chemical compounds, usually a very large number of them. Eating or drinking pure (or nearly-pure) compounds is pretty rare, aside from water.
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### Author:  [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2014, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-chemical-compounds-can-you-safely-drink/692861/32 "2014-07-12T14:40:23Z")
> [@Isilder](#):
>
> Well for the purpose of clarity, you could breath perfluorodecalin, as in fill your lung space with it , only if it had sufficient oxygen dissolved into it. It does love to carry gases, but if it wasn’t exposed to oxygen then its going to suck the O2 out of your blood…
>
> The same problem occurs if you drink it… notionally non-saturated (didn’t achieve equilibrium with air dissolved into it) perfluorodecalin is dangerous as it would starve you of O2.
Oh yeah, I remember reading about perfluorodecalin breathing in my college comparative physiology class.
IIRC, though, even though you can ‘breathe’ certain oxygen-saturated liquids, you’d bee in big trouble once you get taken OUT of the liquids, because it washes away the surfactants on the surfaces of the alveoli, so your lungs can’t function properly in the air anymore. Not sure if that was perfluorodecalin or some other liquid though.
> **[Pulmonary surfactant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulmonary_surfactant)**
>
> Pulmonary surfactant is a surface-active complex of phospholipids and proteins formed by type II alveolar cells. The proteins and lipids that make up the surfactant have both hydrophilic and hydrophobic regions. By adsorbing to the air-water interface of alveoli, with hydrophilic head groups in the water and the hydrophobic tails facing towards the air, the main lipid component of the surfactant, dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC), reduces surface tension.
> As a medication, pulmonary surfact...
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### Author:  [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2014, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-chemical-compounds-can-you-safely-drink/692861/33 "2014-07-12T14:46:31Z")
Another problem with liquid breathing:
“A significant problem, however, arises from the high viscosity of the liquid and the corresponding reduction in its ability to remove CO2.[3][20] All uses of liquid breathing for diving must involve total liquid ventilation (see above). Total liquid ventilation, however, has difficulty moving enough liquid to carry away CO2, because no matter how great the total pressure is, the amount of partial CO2 gas pressure available to dissolve CO2 into the breathing liquid can never be much more than the pressure at which CO2 exists in the blood (about 40 mm of mercury (Torr)).[20]”
> **[Liquid breathing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_breathing)**
>
> Liquid breathing is a form of respiration in which a normally air-breathing organism breathes an oxygen-rich liquid (such as a perfluorocarbon), rather than breathing air.
> By selecting a liquid that is capable of holding large amounts of oxygen and CO2, gas exchange can occur.
> This requires certain physical properties such as respiratory gas solubility, density, viscosity, vapor pressure, and lipid solubility which some perfluorochemicals (PFCs) have. Thus, it is critical to choose the approp...
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### Author:  [@Busy\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Busy_Scissors)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2014, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-chemical-compounds-can-you-safely-drink/692861/34 "2014-07-12T19:05:07Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> To be clear, it _is_, in all seriousness, possible to drink small quantities of liquid nitrogen without harm. The safe amount, however, is extremely small, such that it would be all too easy to accidentally drink a dangerously large amount, and the experiment should therefore not be deliberately conducted.
By the same argument, it may be possible to quaff a small amount of liquid sulfur hexafluoride without harm. Boils at -70 degrees and is famously inert.
Just thinking aloud - Tipping cryogenic liquids down the hatch obv not recommended.
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### Author:  [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2014, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-chemical-compounds-can-you-safely-drink/692861/35 "2014-07-12T20:35:42Z")
Remind me never to come over for drinks.
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### Author:  [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)
#### Post date: [July 13, 2014, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-chemical-compounds-can-you-safely-drink/692861/36 "2014-07-13T01:28:09Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> Eating or drinking pure (or nearly-pure) compounds is pretty rare, aside from water.
A spoonful of sugar. _M. Poppins._
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [July 13, 2014, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-chemical-compounds-can-you-safely-drink/692861/37 "2014-07-13T20:30:10Z")
Well, yes, but how often do you actually eat a spoonful of sugar, not mixed in with anything else?
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### Author:  [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)
#### Post date: [July 13, 2014, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-chemical-compounds-can-you-safely-drink/692861/38 "2014-07-13T23:37:43Z")
[Previous thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=88643) all about drinking deuterium.
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### Author:  [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2014, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-chemical-compounds-can-you-safely-drink/692861/39 "2014-07-14T00:28:53Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> Well, yes, but how often do you actually eat a spoonful of sugar, not mixed in with anything else?
Yabbut, the theme of the thread isn’t about whether it’s a common occurrence, but whether one could do it without much harm.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2014, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-chemical-compounds-can-you-safely-drink/692861/40 "2014-07-15T00:27:06Z")
But you can’t drink pure sucrose (or if you did, you’d be quite badly burned, if you weren’t already asphyxiated).
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