Stone Soup?

[RhythmSpring]

A silly, yet serious question from a curious mind:

What if I literally made soup with rocks in it? Wouldn’t I get valuable trace minerals from the rocks? Like magnesium, iron, copper, selenium, sodium, etc.?

 

[Dave]

Nope. You might get some trace amounts of stuff, but most likely just a bit of dirt from the surface. Rocks tend to be made of very stable stuff. To extract elements, you'd need to have it in a reducing environment, after crushing them to powder, and then undergo a bunch of steps to separate each element from the other. Considering, also, that sodium reacts pretty violently with water in its elemental form, I'd say that you won't get much by boiling rocks.

 

[B17]

A silly, yet serious question from a curious mind:

What if I literally made soup with rocks in it? Wouldn’t I get valuable trace minerals from the rocks? Like magnesium, iron, copper, selenium, sodium, etc.?

We can only digest minerals from plants and animals. Eating raw rocks will get you only sick. Plants take up minerals from the soil and make it available for us to absorb it in that form.

 

[rm-rf]

A silly, yet serious question from a curious mind:

What if I literally made soup with rocks in it? Wouldn’t I get valuable trace minerals from the rocks? Like magnesium, iron, copper, selenium, sodium, etc.?

Did someone read the Soup from a Stone book when they were a kid?

 

[RhythmSpring]

...yes...

Thanks. I won't be eating rocks, don't y'all worry.

 

[attempt4]

Quite a good basic logic though!

 

[addictivepersona]

Heh, good question OP, but unfortunately I see this going nowhere productive as it has been answered, so I'm going to close it. If anyone has reason for this to be reopened (as in they have proof that we can digest rocks ), feel free to PM a HL moderator. :)