Why are some of us crazy enough to pay a king’s ransom for liquid that, in the UK at least, comes free and clean straight from the tap? Drinks producers are having a laugh and we’re lapping up the punch line. Just wander down the drinks aisle of your supermarket or health food shop and you’ll see what I mean.
Now that coconut water is so last year, health hipsters wanting a taste of the latest trend are spoilt for choice. As well as birch water, maple water and cactus water made from plant saps, there are a host of bizarre new ‘enhanced waters’ flooding the shelves.
All kinds of stuff is being squeezed into H2O, including a cornucopia of fruit and vegetable flavourings and ‘fortifying’ vitamins and minerals. You can buy vapour-distilled spring water with added electrolytes, alkaline waters (alkaline trace mineral-infused water) and, my favourite, Antiwater (made with ‘nano-filtered’ H2O, coffee fruit extract and selenium – the antioxidant that gives it its name). So far the latter is only available in the US or online, but it will no doubt be whooshing down the waterslide to the UK soon. After all, the manufacturers predict “the future is clear” – you couldn’t make it up.
It’s this halo effect that drinks producers are trying to conjure that really makes me fume. Predictably, the majority of ‘functional’ (no, I don’t know what that means either…) waters are being marketed as though they’re life-giving liquids fresh from the spring at Lourdes. The labels display promises of health benefits that range from curing your hangover to improving your immune system and detoxifying your liver. I don’t know how many bottles of artichoke water you’d need to guzzle to get the same health benefit as eating a plateful of the real McCoy, but I’d wager it would be quite a few. And at about £2 (it’s not available in the UK yet) and 8g sugar a bottle, it’s clear your wallet will be slimmer, if nothing else.
“The market for this stuff is projected to be worth almost £26 billion by 2019”