Don’t Drink Raw Water
I love raw carrots. Crunchy and sweet, you can dip it in hummus or ranch dressing. Raw apples have the same charm, and raw red onions give the salads a nice look. I’m also a fan ofraw honey granular sugar crystals. Do you know what all these things have in common? They are perfectly healthy to eat raw. Contrary to the latest supposed trend, raw water.
If you’ve ever been camping, you know that if you don’t bring water with you, you must take steps to clean up what you draw from streams and lakes. You can pass it through a filter , pass it through a purification system , add tablets for chemical water purification, or boil it for one minute .
This is because even the cleanest mountain streams are full of deer urine, fish feces, pond foam, mud, and everything that previous tourists left behind. Skip the cleanup and you could get a Cryptosporidium , Shigella , norovirus, or giardia infection.
No source of clean water can be guaranteed. Even if you collect your own rainwater, you must be careful not to build up bacteria in the pipes and reservoirs it enters. In municipal water supplies, water is treated to kill bacteria , usually with chlorine. Even companies that collect and bottle spring water sterilize it, usually by illuminating the water with ultraviolet light .
There are now several companies selling untreated water at premium prices under brands such as Live Water and Tourmaline Spring. Live Water claims that some of the bacteria in the water are “probiotic” and therefore good for you. (Ars Technica reports that the microbiological studies they cite do not support their claims, and that “[t] there is a lot of data here showing that fluoride improves dental health, but none of them show water-based mind control.” ). Don’t drink it. , Okay? Although at $ 60 per jug , you probably didn’t intend to.