Can You Eat Quartz?

If you’re wondering if you can eat quartz, the answer is no.

The rest of this article explains why.

Can You Eat Quartz? (EXPLAINED)

Quartz is made up of silicon dioxide (SiO2), which doesn’t have any nutritional value to humans.

It isn’t considered to be an edible rock salt.

There aren’t any health benefits associated with the consumption of quartz, as the body does not use anything in quartz for the benefit of the body (like other common minerals/metals such as zinc, copper, etc).

Further, consuming too much of it can do some serious damage to your body.

While some people think that ingesting certain types of rocks (like quartz) is a good alternative to salt as a seasoning, this isn’t true at all.

Ingesting large amounts of rock or mineral salts on a regular basis can cause kidney stones and other health problems.

It also doesn’t do anything for your blood pressure since you can’t digest it anyway.

Eating a spoonful of quartz won’t even give you a salty taste.

What is Quartz?

Quartz is the most abundant form of silica found in nature, making up less than 30% of the earth’s crust.

It comes in many different colors and forms, including amethyst, citrine, onyx, chalcopyrite, tridymite, jasper, carnotite, tektites, sandstone, gneiss, obsidian, schist, and flint.

Quartz can also come in other colors such as pink or purple if it contains iron oxide impurities.

Consuming Quartz?

People look at quartz and rock salt and observe the similarities in appearance.

This leads them to consider grinding up quartz to sprinkle into sauces or other cooked food.

Salt dissolves quickly and completely in water, depending on how finely it is ground.

Quartz, on the other hand, does not.

At all.

If you were to sprinkled ground quartz into a spaghetti sauce, when you sat down to eat, the quartz would still be in the same form in the sauce.

Depending upon how finely you’ve ground it up, it could even do damage to your teeth as you try to chew.

Health Benefits?

While quartz has a variety of uses ranging from purported crystal healing to electronic applications, there is no scientific evidence confirming a physical benefit to your body as a result of consuming quartz.

While inhalation is not the same as consumption (to the stomach), you can extrapolate what could happen to if you if did eat quartz a lot (meaning nothing good).

If you breath in quartz particulate in the air frequently for long enough, you can end up with silicosis or fibrosis.

Silicosis is the scarring of the lungs caused by inhaling too much crystalline silicon dioxide.

Fibrosis is a disease that causes your organs and tissues to become thick and stiff due to the accumulation of excess collagen.

Both conditions are commonly associated with people who work in factories that make glass or other manufactured products, as well as people who work in quartz mining.

For example, crystalline silica which makes up around 75% of all quartz, has been deemed unsafe for workers by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) because it can cause cancer, renal disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Quartz vs Halite/Rock Salt

If you do want to try eating crystals though, for whatever reason, rock salt is a better choice than quartz because it does contain sodium chloride which is edible.

Also called halite, rock salt comes from evaporating seawater and is commonly used as table salt and as a substitution for regular salt in recipes.

High blood pressure, water retention, kidney stones, and other health conditions could result if you eat too much rock salt in a short period of time, but it’s not known to cause any acute or chronic illnesses when consumed properly.

Both quartz and rock salt are used for many purposes throughout society, so there is one similarity between the two minerals.

Both can be found naturally on planet earth, but they’re also both man-made depending on how they’re processed before being sold to consumers.

Rock salt isn’t anywhere near as abundant as quartz though, which means it’s more expensive.

Aside from eating it occasionally as a form of seasoning for food, there isn’t really any reason to opt for quartz over rock salt when you need something that can be crushed or used in jewelry.

Popularity of Crystals

Crystals have become increasingly popular as items used for decoration, spirituality, and even some forms of therapy.

This is especially true in some places around the world where some people spend exorbitant amounts of money on crystals they believe have special powers.

Quartz, amethyst, citrine, rose quartz – it’s common to see one or more of these minerals being sold at street markets or packaged up with sage at local malls.

The selling point of these products often lies in the fact that they’re natural rather than manufactured.

Most buyers would not want to buy a piece of lab-created rose quartz if it meant you could get an authentic mineral for a bargain.

As interest increases in crystal therapies, making sure you’re getting real crystals is key.

Since quartz is the most abundant type of crystal, it’s also the easiest to come by in a synthetic form.

You can’t always look at a crystal and tell if it was man-made or if it came from the earth, so ensuring you have a legitimate crystal is going to require some research.

So while eating quartz won’t do anything amazing for you, unless you count getting undigested rocks for dinner as an improvement over whatever else you ate last night, there’s still some interest in these minerals and what they can or cannot do.