The raw water craze can’t be ignored because people are wading into the claptrap.
Promoting untreated H2O in the face of water-borne disease is preposterous
There’s dumb, dumber, superdumb and hyperdumb. Then there is dumb that is beyond a suitable qualifier. Promoting “raw water” as a healthy commodity is in that category. This is water that has not been treated in any way: no filtration, no chlorination, no ozonation, no ultraviolet light treatment, in other words, none of those nasty technologies that save millions and millions of lives a year.
Depending on the source, raw water may be perfectly safe, or it may lead to a battle with hepatitis, giardiasis or a host of bacterial diseases. You could get away with nothing more than cramps, vomiting or explosive diarrhea, but you could also end up in a close and personal relationship with raw underground water. Six feet underground.
Promoting untreated water in the face of everything we know today about water-borne disease is so preposterous it shouldn’t even merit discussion. But the raw water craze can’t be ignored because people are wading into the claptrap. Where? Mostly in California, the very state that introduced Proposition 65, requiring warnings like: “The Disneyland resort contains chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.” That’s because there might be a rogue vacuum cleaner somewhere with a touch of lead solder. No real risk with that, but apparently California has no worries when it comes to the real risk of untreated water.
Live Water is a brand of raw water for which some folks happily fork out $36.99 for two and a half gallons. It is the brainchild of Christopher Sandborn, who rechristened himself as Mukhande Singh, perhaps because that name suits a longhaired, raw water guru.
As Singh tells the story, one day he had a revelation. He discovered that “all bottled water is filtered, sterilized and irradiated for cheaper transport and shelf stability similar to how juice and milk products are pasteurized to save costs.” Whoa! These measures are not carried out to save costs, but to save lives! He then goes on to say that “unfortunately, this destroys five healthy probiotic strains not found in any other food source, and without these probiotics we are unable to assimilate all the nutrients found in our food.”
Probiotic is a popular catchword these days, and for good reason, given that there is accumulating evidence of the role that gut bacteria play in our health. Probiotics are the “good bacteria” that are thought to overwhelm potentially diseasecausing varieties. Surprisingly, Singh is clever enough to capitalize on this idea. As long as nobody asks for any evidence.
Because of his concerns about the travesties inflicted on bottled or tap water, Singh set out on a search for water untainted by the hand of man, and found salvation in a spring somewhere in Oregon. “The first time I drank living spring water, a surge of energy and peacefulness entered my being; I could never go back to drinking dead water again.” Apparently, he knows all about dead water. It’s “toilet water with birth control drugs in them,” he proclaims, the quality of his grammar being comparable to the quality of his science.
By contrast, Singh’s Live Water contains a host of probiotics, or at least bacteria he calls probiotics. Analysis of Live Water does reveal the presence of various bacteria, like pseudomonas putida, one of his supposed probiotics. There is no evidence this bacterium confers any benefit, but I can point out a paper in medical literature with the title: A Lethal Case of Pseudomonas putida Bacteremia Due to Soft Tissue Infection. By mentioning this, I don’t mean to imply that pseudomonas bacteria make Live Water dangerous; just that there is no evidence they make it healthy.
Trying to add some oomph to the claim that “living spring water is the key to unlocking a perfect micro-biome balance,” Live Water promotions refer to a scientific publication titled Non-pathogenic Microflora of a Spring Water with Regenerative Properties. Alluring, until you take the trouble to read the paper. It has nothing to do with drinking spring water. The paper describes “experimental fresh wounds in an animal model showing reduced inflammation when treated with Italian Comano spring water.” The authors hypothesize this might be due to beneficial bacteria found in the water, and suggest these microbes help explain why people believe bathing in spring waters might have some benefit when it comes to human skin ailments. Absolutely nothing to do with drinking Live Water.
Live Water does come from a remote spring, and there is no evidence this particular raw water harbours disease-causing organisms. But the whole concept of raw water does harbour enough detritus to pollute science — and possibly compromise health. Anyone for playing Russian roulette with raw water?