Raw Water: Another Silicon Valley Obsession Costing a Bomb, Potential Harm A Bonus

It appears that when you get a lot of money, you just cannot stop wasting it on things that are not only useless, but also ridiculously expensive. A new trend that now holds Silicon Valley inhabitants captive is raw water, or drinking spring water that was not treated in any way. And yes, it is sold in designer globe jugs under alluring names like “Fountain of Truth”.

In an attempt to make our lives healthier and cleaner, we strive to buy products labeled eco-something, install dozens of apps designed to help us sleep enough and exercise regularly, and succumb to the temptation to buy another fad thingy that looks sooo healthy and promises to make one more aspect of your life holistic and natural. Healthy everything has become mainstream. Bombarded with myriads of ads promoting healthy this or that, we started demonizing foods and other things that we have used or eaten for ages, like butter or meat. Another victim is tap water, which is now allegedly blamed for cluttering our bodies with chlorine, metals and other chemicals and even mind-controlling (sic!) substances. As a result, another trend with a catchy name and impressive price tags appeared. Meet raw water, a product that fascinates the mind of many a Silicon Valley dweller–and the average consumer too, provided they have enough money.

Isn’t all water raw?

Well, technically, raw water is the kind of it that was not processed in any way, i.e. it was not filtered, purified, boiled or whatever. It’s just spring water you can find somewhere in the mountains while hiking. Those living in rural areas will not understand what the use of reinventing the wheel is, as they have been drinking spring, or ‘raw’, water all along (while boiling it to kill germs, of course). To city dwellers, especially the ones who despise tap water and find it disgusting and have money to burn, buying stylish jugs filled with common spring water at the price of $37 a globe is really a revelation. It is no wonder many entrepreneurs jumped at the opportunity, and the mushroom growth of start-ups offering spring water signifies the emergence of a new trend. One of the leading companies specializing in supplying such water is Live Water – that’s the one offering their products in designer jugs made of glass. There are two more or less portable kinds of jugs available at the moment, namely one gallon and one liter (though 2.5 gallons are offered at some stores too). Its founder, Christopher Sandborn, now known as Mukhande Singh, warns that the water turns green if not consumed within a month. Is that really news?

Why is such water dangerous?

The trend advocates claim the water they sell is way healthier as it does not contain industrial chemicals, such as fluoride, which, as they claim, can even mind-control you. While natural water, as it is found somewhere high in the mountains, may be really delicious, refreshing and certainly devoid of chlorine, it may well be dangerous to drink it due to a number of factors. The thing is, although spring water can contain more minerals and lack chemicals specific to water that moves in pipes, it may also teem with bacteria, both beneficial and harmful, and drinking unprocessed water may well land you in hospital, because hepatitis, E. coli, cholera, germs causing diarrhea, vomiting and pain, and other dangers may lurk in it. Humans do not boil, filter, or process water other ways for nothing, and this new hype can increase the risk of catching some nasty bug. Besides, even the purest water taken from natural sources may be contaminated with animal feces.

Let us be honest, if you want to drink from a creek or spring, you can go hiking or travel to some distant mountains, rather than buying it from people who charge so much for plain water, which begs the question of what really drives them – the wish to make our lives more natural or the lust for money.