In reading a book on desert survival recently, I ran across one of the perennial myths of the desert, that you can chop open a barrel cactus (or equivalent) and get enough liquid to stay alive. Before getting into a discussion about the merits of this method of survival, there are a few things you need to know, first of all, being out in the desert without a lot of water available is a very bad idea. There are lots of kinds of deserts and only a few of the real deserts have barrel cactus. So this method of getting water is limited to only those desert, like the Arizona-Sonora Desert, that have barrel cactus and also limited to those areas in the desert where the cactus grow. There is probably some way to get lost or stranded out in a desert with exactly the right combination of altitude, rainfall and soil composition to grow cactus but the possibility is extremely remote.
In addition, most of the barrel cactus are protected species. Although I concede that you might not worry so much about this if you really needed the water, you might think about it when you got the fine from the U.S. Forest Service Ranger. You might want to check with the USDA to find out what species are protected. Also, young saguaros look an awful lot like a barrel cactus, if you are so naive as to get lost or stranded in the desert without water, you probably can't tell the difference between an echinocactus or a ferocactus (barrel) and a carnegiea gigantea (saguaro), but the saguaros are really protected and are nearly impossible to cut open to get any water.
Now, about the water in the cactus. Yes, there is water in some of the barrel cactus and yes, it could keep you alive for a while, assuming you didn't have a reaction to the slimy alkaline juice that will likely cause diarrhea. In my pre-civilized days, I tried the inside of a barrel cactus and would not recommend it to anyone for any purpose. In those days, even though we lived in the city, we could ride our bikes out to the desert in a few minutes, since the desert was only a mile or so away. Now, the subdivisions and shopping centers go on for miles and miles past the areas we had completely to ourselves in the lovely Sonoran Desert.
In addition, most of the barrel cactus are protected species. Although I concede that you might not worry so much about this if you really needed the water, you might think about it when you got the fine from the U.S. Forest Service Ranger. You might want to check with the USDA to find out what species are protected. Also, young saguaros look an awful lot like a barrel cactus, if you are so naive as to get lost or stranded in the desert without water, you probably can't tell the difference between an echinocactus or a ferocactus (barrel) and a carnegiea gigantea (saguaro), but the saguaros are really protected and are nearly impossible to cut open to get any water.
Now, about the water in the cactus. Yes, there is water in some of the barrel cactus and yes, it could keep you alive for a while, assuming you didn't have a reaction to the slimy alkaline juice that will likely cause diarrhea. In my pre-civilized days, I tried the inside of a barrel cactus and would not recommend it to anyone for any purpose. In those days, even though we lived in the city, we could ride our bikes out to the desert in a few minutes, since the desert was only a mile or so away. Now, the subdivisions and shopping centers go on for miles and miles past the areas we had completely to ourselves in the lovely Sonoran Desert.
"I ran across one of the perennial myths of the desert, that you can chop open a barrel cactus (or equivalent) and get enough liquid to stay alive."
ReplyDeleteBut according to the info you list here, that myth is actually accurate. You just went on to list some reasons why you shouldn't purposely go out in the desert planning to get your water from barrel cactus, which probably isn't something people were going to do anyway.
In reply, the saguaro plant stores it's water as a slightly alkaline solution, so although you could drink from the water supply in the saguaro, I don't recommend it as it would probably cause diarrhoea due to the mixture of the supply
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