I was browsing through the USDA Food Search system for data on various foods, when I noticed they include how much of a food is water. What really perplexed me is how 81.1 grams out of 100g of russet potato is water… when 88.1g of 100g of milk is also stated as water.
Obviously a potato isn’t liquid like milk, and my intuition would say that 100g of potatoes seem far denser and “drier” than 100g of milk. I mean can you imagine sating your thirst with just solid potatoes, as opposed to say a glass of milk?
But yet I can’t make sense of why one is solid and the other is liquid when they’re nearly the same in water content, or why one would seem to sate thirst more.
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Bonus question: does this mean you poop about as much from 100g of milk as you would from 100g of, potatoes? I guess you could blend the potatoes…
In: 7
A cow is between 60% and 80% water which is why milk is so high in water. Potatoes are high in water because they take on water (because they need a lot) when they grow. There are at least 20 vegetables that are higher in water. Lettuce is 98% and celery is 96% water. There are a heap with 95% water.
So why aren’t any of these liquid?? A cow is solid and a human is solid (up to 75% water). It comes down to how the source element stores the water. Animals store it in blood and organs etc. in vegetables the easiest analogy is your carton of milk. The 2% solid in a lettuce is robust enough to hold 98% water, like the milk carton.
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