Pickle juice is deadly

[snopes]

Comment: This rumor is not new to me; it's actually something I have always heard since I was a child. People have always told me that drinking pickle juice would kill you. The amount of pickle juice it would take varied but usully it was understood that some poor kid probably ate the last pickle, drank the juice remaining in the jar, then keeled over.

[Aud 1]

Well it's really salty. If you have dangerously high blood pressure it could be an issue. OTOH I know people who use pickle juice rather than gatorade when exercising.

[Astra]

I've never seen it anywhere else, but at sporting events here, individually packages pickles are insanely popular at the concession stands. People eat them, then drink the juice. Haven't heard of anyone dying from it yet.

[hambubba]

Ah yes - - - death by puckering per preponderance of putrid pickled portions.

Happens all the time.

[Ariadne]

I used to drink the pickle juice right from the jar, and I am still very much alive. I can't stomach a whole jarful now, but I do have some sips of the juice when I finish the pickles. Good stuff.

I have heard of people who drink olive juice, but I can't do that.

[Morrigan]

I have a friend who craves pickle juice. She buys the jars of pickles just for the juice.

And yes, she's still alive.

Morrigan

[Squishy0405]

Maybe I should try it with pop rocks...mmm salty explosions

[Canuckistan]

Originally Posted by Squishy0405

Maybe I should try it with pop rocks

Death will only come when you chant Bloody Mary in the bathroom immediately afterward.

[Horse Chestnut]

Well, I suppose you could electrocute yourself while building a pickle juice battery.

Originally Posted by Astra

I've never seen it anywhere else, but at sporting events here, individually packages pickles are insanely popular at the concession stands. People eat them, then drink the juice. Haven't heard of anyone dying from it yet.

It must be a "Southern" thing because they do it in my neck of the woods too. I hate pickles but work the concession stand during football season (kids in the band, band parents run the concessions), so I get to handle a lot of pickles. Yuk.

Back in 2000, the sports press made a big deal about the Philidelphia Eagles Drinking pickle juice during a warm weather game in Dallas.

[sparklygirl]

When I was a kid all the old timers told us it was good for when you had a belly ache - "If you have a bug that there pickle vinegar will take care of it."
But maybe it's just an Ozarks saying.

Sparklygirl

[snapdragonfly]

I had a co worker who swore by pickle juice for heartburn. It was all she took.

Alum is frequently used in pickles to give them some snap, I don't know if that's a form of aluminum like is in Rolaids so I don't know if that's why she found it effective. But it is mostly vinegar, and natural therapy folks always say a little vinegar is effective for a sour stomach, so I suspect that's why she found relief.

She's clearly still alive because she is sending me horribly annoying glurges at the rate of several a day as I am one on her lengthy "forward" list. Arrg.

[mizzie]

If this was true, me and several of my junior high friends would have been dead years ago. We all loved pickle juice and would often buy a jar each for our sleep-overs. By the end of the night, each jar would be empty of both pickles and juice.

My mom always told me I'd get sick from drinking that much vinegar, but none of us ever did.

Good stuff. It's been years since I drank the juice though... Hmm, wonder if we have any pickles.

[Sara@home]

"Pickle juice" is nothing more than some combination that can include vinegar, water, sugar and salt. Depending on the salt concentration, the amount a child drank, and the age/size of the child it is conceivable that a child could consume enough salt by drinking pickle juice to cause death. A few teaspoons of salt will kill a small child.

[Noemi]

Originally Posted by Sara@home

"Pickle juice" is nothing more than some combination that can include vinegar, water, sugar and salt. Depending on the salt concentration, the amount a child drank, and the age/size of the child it is conceivable that a child could consume enough salt by drinking pickle juice to cause death. A few teaspoons of salt will kill a small child.

Do you know how many teaspoons exactly? I can say most of the recipes I have looked at for home canned pickles have no more than a tablespoon of salt per quart, so I guess it's possible but it would need to be three or less teaspoons. Also I think it would be hard to determine what the final salt concentration would be though since the food item that is being pickled will absorb some of the salt.

Noemi

[geminilee]

Originally Posted by Sara@home

"Pickle juice" is nothing more than some combination that can include vinegar, water, sugar and salt. Depending on the salt concentration, the amount a child drank, and the age/size of the child it is conceivable that a child could consume enough salt by drinking pickle juice to cause death. A few teaspoons of salt will kill a small child.

It would have to be a pretty small child, or a lot of pickle juice. http://lethaldose.org/salt.html puts the lethal amount at almost half a gram per pound of body weight.

[tribrats]

I've found that it's only deadly to cucumbers.

[Wet Blanket]

I have a friend who craved pickle juice when pregnant. She would reportedly go to the grocery, buy a jar of pickles, and drain the jar of juice just as soon as she got out to the car. Both she and the baby fared just fine.

I've been drinking it for years (only if I know no one will catch me) and I'm ok. So far.



As an anecdote, years ago my best friend found out her boyfriend at the time was cheating on her. The day she moved her stuff out of their shared home, she decided to leave him a present. He loved to drink pickle juice, so she used the pickle jar in the fridge as a urinal before she left. Ah, young love.