The raw water movement is incredibly ridiculous and incredibly dangerous

The health industry has spewed up some truly ridiculous trends over the years.

But in 2018 we have coughed one up so outrageous that it could easily dismissed as satire: the raw water movement, which is springing up in the West Coast of America.

Raw water is spring water that's unfertilised, untreated and unsterilised. In other words, the water hasn't been treated to prevent the spread of bacteria and other contaminants.

Put any scoffing questions to the side for now - such as, why would anyone pay $27 for one litre of water? And can water really be raw? - because, more importantly, this fad is also potentially dangerous.

Unsurprisingly, Mukhande Singh, the founder of start-up Live Water that sells this untreated water, disagrees with the scientific consensus.

He told the New York Timesthat he believes public water has been poisoned:

Tap water? You’re drinking toilet water with birth control drugs in them. 

Chloramine, and on top of that they’re putting in fluoride. 

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but it’s a mind-control drug that has no benefit to our dental health.

However, Dr Donald Hensrud told the paper that treating water is an important safety measure.

Without water treatment, there’s acute and then chronic risks.

There’s evidence all over the world of this, and the reason we don’t have those conditions is because of our very efficient water treatment.

Dr Hensrud is not the only one who thinks that raw water is dangerous.

Laura Helmuth, the Washington Post science editor, tweeted:

Brendan Nyhan, political science professor at Dartmouth College, pointed out that the importance of proper water treatment given the water crisis in Flint, Michigan.

After all, there is a reason that the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention called water chlorination and treatment "one of the ten greatest public health achievements of the 20th century".

HT New York Times, IFLS

More: This man’s head is an important message to always wear sunscreen