Honestly, I trust the people making horse electrolytes more than I trust the FDA anyway. You don’t want to piss off horse people, and the FDA has always been more of a corporate liability shield than a safety agency.
Of course, you’d still have to pay attention to the ingredients and take a small enough amount so you aren’t getting too much of anything, but that would just make it last longer.
Like it states in the fact check article, it can be toxic for humans.
Horses are herbivores, humans omnovores. The stomachs of horses are different to ours. That means there could be certain ingredients which were prepared differently for horses so they are toxic for us, as we lack the ability to digest it the same way as a horse. Like soy for example. The soy used for animal food is toxic for us. The soy used for human consumption is different, of a much higher quality. We can’t digest all soy types properly while herbivores can.
Another example: horses can eat everything they eat raw. We humans can’t. We need to cook many things otherwise they are toxic (like eggplant) or they are very hard to digest. Horses can eat grass, we really shouldn’t because we can’t digest it properly.
Conclusion: don’t use products made for animals (food and medicine) even though the ingredients might look safe while they can still be toxic due to different quality or preparation. Except dog and cat food in the US. Both of those are also safe for humans, as people during crisis or extreme poor people tend to eat that so both of those are also brought to FDA standards. But yes, as a European I can agree with you those standards are complete shit. Many FDA safe foods in the US are considered toxic here and aren’t allowed on our market.
That link absolutely does not say it’s toxic. It says the FDA doesn’t check if it is or isn’t toxic for humans. That’s not the same thing.
It’s electrolytes dissolved in water. They’re not adding anything dangerous to that. It would just be a waste of money. Yes, you generally shouldn’t eat animal foods unless you know exactly what you are doing, and you definitely shouldn’t take animal medications, but holy crap, you can be too paranoid.
A nutritionist told Lead Stories that people should not take animal supplements or medications without medical advice since the products could be toxic for humans.
So indeed it did not state it “is” toxic, nor did I claim it to be.
It’s electrolytes dissolved in water. They’re not adding anything dangerous to that.
Can you support your claim? Do you have the listed ingredients?
Also, what electrolytes were used? Do you know what they are?
Wikipedia:
An electrolyte is a substance that conducts electricity through the movement of ions, but not through the movement of electrons. This includes most soluble salts, acids, and bases, dissolved in a polar solvent like water.
Not all salts, acids and bases are safe for human consumption while they could be for horses.
Calcium, salt, sodium, potassium, magnesium, manganese, zinc, iron, and copper. It’s not hard to find. Some of the quantities are given in the percent of a horse’s daily value, so it would be a little more research to figure out how much it would be safe to have, but it’s really basic stuff printed on the side of the tub and on every product listing on the internet. This isn’t some deep dark secret.
Common edible salt, sodium chloride, is properly cleaned for human consumption, this often isn’t the case for animal use. So there can be a lot of dangerous other stuff in there, like heavy metals. Again you list “salt”. What salt? Sodium chloride, potassium chloride, or something else? You know how many salts there are?
You know how fast we can get too much iron? Supplementing iron is something you should only do when your doctor tells you to. Too much calcium is also bad for your bones (become brittle). This can already happen when you drink milk on a daily basis. I don’t know about the rest, but there’s a chance it’s similarly dangerous to randomly supplement those too.
If you want cheap electrolytes, buy ORS. Or make your own ORS mix, you can find online how to make it (plain kitchen salt or several salts if you’re fancy, and sugar, in water).
My two biggest skepticisms with taking horse electrolytes:
I would be suspicious of the quality and food-safety (ie., cleanliness) of the product. I have seen leaked videos of feed for animals being full of discarded plastic products. Products for them do tend to be of lower quality.
These ingredients are all just mixed together right? If it’s formulated for a horse, you’re not realistically going to be able to find an ideal dose for yourself because the ratios of ingredients are already set, and they’re not going to match human daily values. To get a safe dose you would have to keep it low enough to ensure none of the ingredients are approaching toxic limits, by which point you’re probably getting negligible amounts of the other ingredients.
Just why? In general you are best off getting your nutrients from food, real, whole food. The only two ingredients I see there that I tend to “supplement” is sodium and potassium - sodium as iodized salt because iodine is hard to get through diet alone; and potassium because mixing a 50/50 or even 75/25 ratio of potassium to salt is a good way to balance out the hypertensive and artery hardening properties of sodium with an electrolyte that reduces blood pressure, as well as being a convenient way to get potassium. Neither of those things are very expensive.
I’m guessing anything that provides electrolytes to horses probably has an absurb amount of potassium in it which is usually only put into human drinks in limited amounts cause it can be lethal. I read a story of some dude who drank 8 coconut waters while playing basketball, passed out, and his blood pressure at the ER was 65 over 40.
So what you’re telling me is that being tricked into eating a dog treat really isn’t that big of a deal and in fact! relates to the poverty stricken parts of society and the struggles of class warfare so they really just need to get over the whole incident?
Honestly, I trust the people making horse electrolytes more than I trust the FDA anyway. You don’t want to piss off horse people, and the FDA has always been more of a corporate liability shield than a safety agency.
Of course, you’d still have to pay attention to the ingredients and take a small enough amount so you aren’t getting too much of anything, but that would just make it last longer.
Like it states in the fact check article, it can be toxic for humans.
Horses are herbivores, humans omnovores. The stomachs of horses are different to ours. That means there could be certain ingredients which were prepared differently for horses so they are toxic for us, as we lack the ability to digest it the same way as a horse. Like soy for example. The soy used for animal food is toxic for us. The soy used for human consumption is different, of a much higher quality. We can’t digest all soy types properly while herbivores can.
Another example: horses can eat everything they eat raw. We humans can’t. We need to cook many things otherwise they are toxic (like eggplant) or they are very hard to digest. Horses can eat grass, we really shouldn’t because we can’t digest it properly.
Conclusion: don’t use products made for animals (food and medicine) even though the ingredients might look safe while they can still be toxic due to different quality or preparation. Except dog and cat food in the US. Both of those are also safe for humans, as people during crisis or extreme poor people tend to eat that so both of those are also brought to FDA standards. But yes, as a European I can agree with you those standards are complete shit. Many FDA safe foods in the US are considered toxic here and aren’t allowed on our market.
Not that I condone consuming stuff made for other animals, but this sounds like stuff you made it up.
It’s why pet food is regulated by the FDA.
That link absolutely does not say it’s toxic. It says the FDA doesn’t check if it is or isn’t toxic for humans. That’s not the same thing.
It’s electrolytes dissolved in water. They’re not adding anything dangerous to that. It would just be a waste of money. Yes, you generally shouldn’t eat animal foods unless you know exactly what you are doing, and you definitely shouldn’t take animal medications, but holy crap, you can be too paranoid.
I said the article states it “can” be toxic.
The article:
So indeed it did not state it “is” toxic, nor did I claim it to be.
Can you support your claim? Do you have the listed ingredients?
Also, what electrolytes were used? Do you know what they are?
Wikipedia:
Not all salts, acids and bases are safe for human consumption while they could be for horses.
Calcium, salt, sodium, potassium, magnesium, manganese, zinc, iron, and copper. It’s not hard to find. Some of the quantities are given in the percent of a horse’s daily value, so it would be a little more research to figure out how much it would be safe to have, but it’s really basic stuff printed on the side of the tub and on every product listing on the internet. This isn’t some deep dark secret.
Common edible salt, sodium chloride, is properly cleaned for human consumption, this often isn’t the case for animal use. So there can be a lot of dangerous other stuff in there, like heavy metals. Again you list “salt”. What salt? Sodium chloride, potassium chloride, or something else? You know how many salts there are?
You know how fast we can get too much iron? Supplementing iron is something you should only do when your doctor tells you to. Too much calcium is also bad for your bones (become brittle). This can already happen when you drink milk on a daily basis. I don’t know about the rest, but there’s a chance it’s similarly dangerous to randomly supplement those too.
If you want cheap electrolytes, buy ORS. Or make your own ORS mix, you can find online how to make it (plain kitchen salt or several salts if you’re fancy, and sugar, in water).
My two biggest skepticisms with taking horse electrolytes:
I would be suspicious of the quality and food-safety (ie., cleanliness) of the product. I have seen leaked videos of feed for animals being full of discarded plastic products. Products for them do tend to be of lower quality.
These ingredients are all just mixed together right? If it’s formulated for a horse, you’re not realistically going to be able to find an ideal dose for yourself because the ratios of ingredients are already set, and they’re not going to match human daily values. To get a safe dose you would have to keep it low enough to ensure none of the ingredients are approaching toxic limits, by which point you’re probably getting negligible amounts of the other ingredients.
Just why? In general you are best off getting your nutrients from food, real, whole food. The only two ingredients I see there that I tend to “supplement” is sodium and potassium - sodium as iodized salt because iodine is hard to get through diet alone; and potassium because mixing a 50/50 or even 75/25 ratio of potassium to salt is a good way to balance out the hypertensive and artery hardening properties of sodium with an electrolyte that reduces blood pressure, as well as being a convenient way to get potassium. Neither of those things are very expensive.
I’m guessing anything that provides electrolytes to horses probably has an absurb amount of potassium in it which is usually only put into human drinks in limited amounts cause it can be lethal. I read a story of some dude who drank 8 coconut waters while playing basketball, passed out, and his blood pressure at the ER was 65 over 40.
So what you’re telling me is that being tricked into eating a dog treat really isn’t that big of a deal and in fact! relates to the poverty stricken parts of society and the struggles of class warfare so they really just need to get over the whole incident?
What happened?
I was not telling you that