‘Raw Water’ Isn’t Better for You—But It Could Definitely Hurt You
The New York Times reported earlier this week on a new trend: "raw water." Several companies around the country are selling it, notably Live Water on the west coast and Tourmaline Spring in Maine. This is water that’s untreated, unfiltered, unprocessed in any way—direct from nature to the consumer.
As someone who’s made a living studying infectious diseases, I can say with a good level of confidence that this is a pretty terrible idea.
The provision of safe drinking water is one of the leading public health achievements of the 20th century. Before municipalities provided treated drinking water, outbreaks of water-borne infections such as cholera and typhoid fever were common—and deadly.
Today, water for most of us in the U.S. comes from a city tap, and is treated via a combination of filtration and disinfection systems (including chlorination or treatment with ozone). Fluoride is then added in most locations. Tap water has been tested and regulated for almost a century, with the latest update via the Safe Drinking Water Act in 1974. This requires testing and monitoring of a number of microbes (bacteria, parasites, and viruses) and dozens of chemicals in the water supply, overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Bottled water is treated similarly in the standards it must uphold, but as a consumer product is regulated via the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rather than the EPA. However, testing of bottled water lags behind municipal water, which requires more frequent water testing than the FDA does. The EPA also discloses their test results to the public; the FDA does not. Sources of bottled water are also not required to be disclosed. You may be able to tell if bottled water comes from a municipal source (in other words, is re-bottled tap water), but not necessarily where it originated. Some big-name bottled water comes from municipal water sources, including Aquafina and Dasani. Both brands are further treated via reverse osmosis to remove any remaining impurities, such as dissolved minerals or bacteria.
Raw water, unlike what you get from a tap or a bottle, is not treated, filtered, disinfected, or fluoridated.
It is taken from the source and sold as-is—which could include a variety of contaminants. These include Giardia, a parasite found in streams and rivers that causes “beaver fever” in campers and hikers, and bacteria like Shigella and Campylobacter that can cause bloody diarrhea. Raw water also could contain dangerous heavy metals such as arsenic, lead, mercury, chromium, and cadmium.
That said, the current sources used by Live Water and Tourmaline Spring are reportedly uncontaminated aquifers, meaning they are taken from deep in the earth and should, in theory, be protected from pathogens present in open streams, rivers, or lakes—such as bacteria and parasites resulting from fecal waste contamination. But even if they do lack pathogens, these waters are no healthier than available tap water, and are orders of magnitude more expensive.
The real problem is that these raw water enthusiasts also encourage people to purchase their 2.5 gallon glass jugs and search out their own nearby streams, all with zero mention of potential adverse health effects. In fact, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Doug Evans went on a “raw water fast" last year after the demise of his company, Juicero, and chronicled his time “spring hunting” before beginning to purchase Live Water, admittedly trespassing across private property “under cover of night” to collect untreated water.
So, why would individuals take the risk on raw water over regulated-and-tested tap water? According to the Times article, motivations include a wariness of tap water—particularly that it may contain chemicals or pharmaceuticals and lack good bacteria. It could also be a desire to only consume the purest, most natural substances available—no matter the cause. And some may be wary of municipal water after recent high-profile failures of municipal water systems, such as the tragic crisis in Flint, Michigan, where a switch in their water source resulted in lead-contaminated water. But this is like avoiding all planes because of one crash: Overall, our municipal water has been found to be safe by the EPA.
Proponents of raw water make a variety of claims that are at best lacking scientific support and at worst completely contradictory to reality.
Live Water makes unfounded and erroneous claims, including that “blasting water with ozone changes its molecular structure.” This is not true; all water is the same molecular structure that you learned in high school chemistry: two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen. That’s what makes it, well, water.
They also claim that using irradiation (another type of disinfection) turns your water into a genetically-modified organism (GMO), and that “GMO seeds and GMO water don't have the capacity to reproduce life.” Also not true; GMO seeds are used widely in farming and by any definition, certainly “reproduce life.”
The company also says that fluoride present in tap water is a “neurotoxin.” However, in doses used in drinking water, fluoride has repeatedly been found to be safe and effective at reducing cavities. In any case, fluoride can also be found naturally in water sources, and some of these naturally-fluoridated water sources can have fluoride at even higher levels than what occurs in municipal sources.
One of their biggest claims is that their raw water contain “probiotics,” or beneficial bacteria. In an interview with VoyageLA, Live Water founder Mukhande Singh claims his water source contains “at least five living water exclusive recently discovered probiotics.” He elaborates on their web page that these (now four) probiotics “aren't found in any other food source.” He links to a laboratory report with more details on these probiotics, but the microbiological results don’t mean what Singh claims they do.
The report indeed lists the four organisms found: “Pseudomonas oleovorans, Acidovorax spp., Pseudomonas putida, and Pseudomonas spp.” Three of those mentioned, all types of Pseudomonas, are not surprising—Pseudomonas species are very common in the water and soil. Some of these species have previously been found in sand from oil spills, and are being investigated for their ability to break down oil. Two of these Pseudomonas species have also been shown to cause serious human disease.
The other two listed, “Acidovorax spp.” and “Pseudomonas spp.”, aren’t actually individual species at all. The “spp” means that a particular species wasn’t identified—it’s like saying “some people” were there instead of “Jane Doe.” But collectively, some species of Acidovorax are also environmental bacteria that sometimes infect people, but more commonly make plants ill. In any case, his suggestion that the “probiotic” bacteria found are in any way helpful or unique is yet another dubious claim.
Unfortunately, grandiose health claims like the recent ones about raw water aren’t novel.
In fact, they sound very similar to health claims made about raw milk: that raw milk is better for you than “dead,” pasteurized milk; that the process of pasteurization changes the chemical makeup of milk; that the probiotics in raw milk improve your health. And like raw water, pathogens present in raw milk products can also pose a serious health risk.
And the populations drawn to the idea of raw water likely have substantial overlap with those who may consider purchasing raw milk. These are individuals who are privileged enough to spend an exorbitant amount of money on something as simple as water, believing it to be more “pure” and closer to nature than the tap water most would have access to for practically nothing. They ignore that globally, almost a billion people lack access to clean water and drink from “raw” sources not because they choose to, but out of necessity.
As advertised, raw water is a scam lacking any discernible health benefit. Don’t buy it. Literally.
SELF reached out to Live Water and Tourmaline Spring for comment. We will update this post if we hear back.
Tara Smith, Ph.D. is an infectious disease epidemiologist and associate professor at the Kent State University College of Public Health.
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