AlainLocke
Banned
Drink hookworms for 36.99
How Raw Water Tries to Make Poverty Hip
Two and a half gallons of “raw water” will cost you $36.99 at the Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco, California. At Liquid Eden in San Diego, you can pay $2.50 a gallon for water free of chlorine and fluoride; the shop’s owner told The New York Times that she sells 900 gallons of water a day. Raw water is being championed by the former CEO of Juicero, the notorious Silicon Valley purveyor of juice-squeezing machines that shut down after it was revealed that its bags of juice could be squeezed just as well by hand. Raw water acolytes can also purchase Source, a roof system that collects water from the air, for $4,500.
Raw water may well be special, but it is not safe, as the Timesconcedes. Parasites thrive in unfiltered water. So do bacteria that cause deadly waterborne diseases like cholera. In September, The Guardian reportedthat a predominately African American region of Alabama is suffering from an outbreak of hookworm, a disease supposedly eradicated decades ago, thanks to contaminated water. When people drink untreated water, it’s usually because they have nothing else to drink.
The raw water phenomenon is related to a hubris specific to Silicon Valley. The industry’s “invention” of things that already exist is, as Abby Ohlheiser noted for The Washington Post last year, “a running theme.” In the case of raw water, however, there’s an extra dimension to the story. People who believe that unfiltered water is good for them haven’t just confused themselves into believing they’ve invented something that already exists. They’ve adopted a hardship that poor people suffer, and stripped it of its association with poverty. In the hands of a would-be juice titan like Doug Evans, raw water is a way of gentrifying that poverty.
How Raw Water Tries to Make Poverty Hip
Two and a half gallons of “raw water” will cost you $36.99 at the Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco, California. At Liquid Eden in San Diego, you can pay $2.50 a gallon for water free of chlorine and fluoride; the shop’s owner told The New York Times that she sells 900 gallons of water a day. Raw water is being championed by the former CEO of Juicero, the notorious Silicon Valley purveyor of juice-squeezing machines that shut down after it was revealed that its bags of juice could be squeezed just as well by hand. Raw water acolytes can also purchase Source, a roof system that collects water from the air, for $4,500.
Raw water may well be special, but it is not safe, as the Timesconcedes. Parasites thrive in unfiltered water. So do bacteria that cause deadly waterborne diseases like cholera. In September, The Guardian reportedthat a predominately African American region of Alabama is suffering from an outbreak of hookworm, a disease supposedly eradicated decades ago, thanks to contaminated water. When people drink untreated water, it’s usually because they have nothing else to drink.
The raw water phenomenon is related to a hubris specific to Silicon Valley. The industry’s “invention” of things that already exist is, as Abby Ohlheiser noted for The Washington Post last year, “a running theme.” In the case of raw water, however, there’s an extra dimension to the story. People who believe that unfiltered water is good for them haven’t just confused themselves into believing they’ve invented something that already exists. They’ve adopted a hardship that poor people suffer, and stripped it of its association with poverty. In the hands of a would-be juice titan like Doug Evans, raw water is a way of gentrifying that poverty.
y'all want natural right?
