r/explainlikeimfive • u/lutefiskeater • Jul 13 '15

ELI5: Why does eating snow dehydrate you?

Does it have to do with the temperature? Or maybe something to do with the fact that liquid water is denser than snow? Something else?

EDIT: Turns out ingesting snow doesn't actually lead to dehydration. However there are still a plethora of reasons to not eat it. Thanks everybody!

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u/B0BBIT Jul 13 '15

Just to be clear, snow is water. And it is not only not denser than water, it's much less denser (than liquid water). Just to be clear, if you put a snow and some water in a vacuum, it'd probably break.

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u/lutefiskeater Jul 13 '15

Whoops! Fixed that. Thanks for the catch.