Re: urine therapy
Yes there are a lot of cultures where urine is considered healthy, or good luck or whatever. And by the same token if people knew half of what was really in their food then they would probably never eat again. As I pointed out earlier honey is bee vomit. And chocolate is notorious for cockroaches and other bug parts that are deliberately added as filler. The FDA allows a certain percentage to be added. And meats also contain urea, ammonia, blood, etc. And you don't even want to know where B12 supplements use to come from.
Then there are medications made from urine such as Premarin, which comes from pregnant mare's urine. And Endostatin derived from rat urine.
So I really don't look at it from a "it is gross" standpoint. My problem with it goes back to the fact that urine is full of excess the body is trying to eliminate. The body has enough intelligence to get rid of excesses like uric acid, glucose, hormones, etc. So why would we put something back in to the body that the body is trying to get rid of?
And as far as it being a cultural practice, again yes this is true. There is even parts of India where drinking urine from cows, which are sacred, is a common practice. A thing to be kept in mind about practices though is they are often different than the way other people interpret them. For example, I have heard over and over how the Chinese have used ephedra (ma huang) safely for 5,000 years. So they claim because the safety record in Chinese medicine that ephedra is therefore safe. The problem with this is that the Chinese did not use ephedra recreationally. They used it medicinally, which was as needed. When used recreationally, as in the case as a daily energy booster the ephedra does become dangerous. So back to urine therapy. Do these other cultures practice this on a daily basis, or is this the interpretation of what is done by sites promoting urine therapy. Or do these cultures practice the drinking of urine on occasion as a religious practice, preventing the overconsumption of what the body is trying to get rid of?