of death would probably be water intoxication. Water And Electrolytes Water intoxication is the extreme result of a bodily imbalance between electrolytes (the minerals in your blood and body fluid that carry an electric charge) and water, a condition called "hyponatremia." Chemically speaking, an electrolyte is any substance that ionizes, i.e. gains or loses an electron or electrons, when dissolved in a solvent like water. A classic example is table salt, chemical formula NaCl, which dissociates into a positively charge sodium ions and negatively charged chloride ions when dissolved in water. Water just so happens to be the most versatile solvent there is, a property it owes to the arrangement of its hydrogen and oxygen atoms. Without getting too into the details, every H2O molecule possesses a partial negative charge near its oxygen atom and partial positive charge near its hydrogen atoms. The polar nature of water's structure allows it to dissolve more substances than any liquid on
reactions, neither in food nor in microorgan- isms. We call this immobilization: the water Action of Salt in Meat Products activity (aw) is reduced. In pure water, the Chemically, salt is sodium chloride (NaCl), aw = 1.00. In a totally dry product, aw = 0. By which dissociates in water into Na+ and Cl− freezing, the water molecules are also bound H2 O O H2 H2O Na+ OH2 OH2 Cl– H2O O H2