Is the snow during winter edible or good for human consumption?

Of course it is! I regularly collect it to make tea, and am hoping to try making ice cream this winter. It is possible that there are pollutants in the water, but how is that any different than the water you get out of the tap? Do any of you know how tap water is treated? I'll give you one hint - it is barely treated. Sure it is filtered to remove particulates, then shocked with chlorine to sanitize (not sterilize - big difference). Flouride is generally added as well, which has implications in numerous diseases, including brain cancer and tooth decay (yes! just what it is supposed to prevent).

And what of the environmental pollutants for which nearly all of our drinking water sources are essentially giant receptacles? Sand filters might pick up some of this, but there is to my knowledge no specific pollutant treatment at municipal centers. To treat pollutants, you need to first know what pollutants you are dealing with, and then treat for them individually in most cases. Since water can contain thousands of different pollutant chemicals, including pesticides, herbicides, PCBs, hydrocarbons (petroleum products), and the like, this is impractical at best from a perspective of both time and cost.

What about bottled water? Numerous analytical studies have indicated that bottled water is in many cases of worse quality than tap, containing the same types of pollutants as well as those potentially leached from the plastic receptacle. Then of course there is the resource cost of actually transporting bottled water, compared to the insubstantial resource cost of transporting tap water. Lastly, tap water costs pennies to the gallon, whereas bottle is dollars per gallon.

Naturally you should have some concerns with snow and rain water, namely whatever it came in contact with. I think in this way snow might be much safer than rain, since to collect rain you would likely tap into a downspout or collect from an area to which it had flowed, picking up contaminants along the way (bird droppings and shingle residue on a roof, for example). There will be some particles in the water once the snow melts, so you could run the water through a fine mesh strainer or cheesecloth. I think it greatly improves the flavor of tea and other beverages.

Lol. I would say it all depends on where you live and what the air pollution is like in your area. But generally speaking, eat all the snow you want, just stay away from the yellow stuff.

Add: As for the snow fleas (which really aren't fleas at all, btw), you can see them on the snow, so you'll know if they are there.

Snow is the organic ice. The ice you get from the freezer is frozen by a machine. Snow is 100% naturally frozen in filtered. Just make sure it hasn't been contaminated before you use it. The yellow snow is not lemon flavoured ice.

In survival situations and make sure it's melted before eating. Eating a lot of snow will kill you by lowering your core body temperature.

Unless you live in a smog filled city eating a little snow will not kill you, if it did 99% of children wouldn't reach their 12th birthday.

Why is this in the V/v section anyway.

I have always been told not to eat it because of the pollution. Not sure if its true but I live in a place where is snows alot and everyone always says not to eat snow.

Snow ice forms around a dust particle. Do you know what is in the dust particle?

Not a good idea, even if it's clean. Your body will waste too much energy warming it up into a liquid. Just stick with regular liquid water.

I would stick with the marzipan penguins if I were you. My home-ec teacher made cookies she called penguins...they were kind of a sugar cookie with dark and white chocolate. You could try that too. They probably taste better than real penguins.

yellow snow, when you wee in the snow. it helps with color to snowmen, and it gives the snowman a realistic yellow jersey if you can aim and has lots in the tank.

No..it usually has atmospheric dirt in ti and if it has sat for some time, it will have snow fleas. Little nasty bugs.