No, ‘Raw Water’ Isn’t Healthier Than Tap—It Could Actually Make You Very Sick
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To the uninitiated, the phrase raw water might seem redundant. What is water if not the most plain and elemental substance? As of late, though, the term has come to refer specifically to unfiltered, unboiled, untreated H2O, mostly from springs—which raw water proponents claim is awash with unique health benefits (like extra mineral content and fewer chemicals). So much so that some even started bottling and selling the stuff a few years back, and for no small price at that. Buoyed in part by a groundswell of opposition to government health practices, the push for raw water is bubbling to the surface yet again. But let us be clear: You don’t want to ride this wave.
“Part of the appeal is based on the fallacy that if Mother Nature made it then it must be good for you,” William J. Sullivan, PhD, Showalter professor in the department of microbiology and immunology at the Indiana University School of Medicine, tells SELF. But of course harmful things like arsenic, poison ivy, radioactivity, and earthquakes are also nature-made, he says. And even when it comes to resources that should theoretically be safe, like a flowing stream, there’s the simple reality that today’s world is “not pure,” Marion Nestle, PhD, a molecular biologist and Paulette Goddard Professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health, emerita, at New York University, tells SELF. Meaning, no water source, no matter how remote, can be guaranteed to be pristine or totally uncontaminated. (Hence why it’s not advised to just drink from any stream or pond you find in the wilderness on a hike, and filtering or boiling water first is a must.)
There’s also the related misconception that things altered by humans or industrialized are inherently bad—that they’ve had natural benefits stripped out or synthetic harms added in—which may push some toward raw water if only to avoid tap. It’s the same reason certain folks might bypass pasteurized milk for the raw version, Dr. Sullivan says: Some believe “that the very methods employed to make these liquids safe for consumption are somehow hazardous to our health.”
Likewise, an increasing number of folks oppose government health interventions on the basis that they’re overstepping (despite the science behind them)—a movement called “health freedom” that’s picked up steam since Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of its longtime supporters, was chosen by president-elect Donald Trump to head the Department of Health and Human Services. Vaccines, COVID protocols, pasteurization, and yes, water treatment are among its targets.
But the truth is, the passage of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) in 1974 and its requirement that water in all public systems in the country be monitored and treated to meet safety standards has been an “enormous public health achievement,” Dr. Nestle says, granting us some of the safest drinking water in the world. Read on to learn why there’s plenty of risk—and zero benefit—to forgoing tap for untreated sources.
Drinking raw water (that hasn’t been tested and treated) can be super risky.
A whole bevy of harmful bugs and toxic substances can be drifting around in any untreated water and make you sick if you consume them. Microbes generally infiltrate natural water by way of—brace yourself—animal poop and pee. “Water sources may look pristine, but what you don’t see are animals using it as their bathroom as well as the decaying carcasses of fish, frogs, or other animals under the surface,” Dr. Sullivan says. And if there’s a chicken, beef, or dairy farm upstream? You up your chances of germy water, Dr. Nestle notes. Just a few of the common water-borne buggers you might encounter: bacteria like E. Coli and Salmonella and viruses like rotavirus and norovirus, all of which can cause a host of GI woes (like diarrhea and vomiting), as well as diarrheal parasites like Cryptosporidium and Giardia, and the virus hepatitis A, which causes liver infection.
There’s also all the potential nonliving contaminants to contend with. Among them: pesticides flowing from nearby farms, heavy metals like mercury and arsenic and chemicals like PFAS (a.k.a. “forever chemicals”) leaching out of landfills and industrial discharge, and an array of other dangerous substances eroding from natural deposits, Dr. Nestle says. Raw water can even contain lead—which proponents may point to as a concern in tap water that sometimes flows through lead pipes (more on this below). Various industrial practices and the historic use of lead-laden materials (like paint and gasoline) have created deposits of lead in soil that can seep right into streams and springs. The list of health effects from long-term exposure to the above pollutants is too long to recount, but includes things like kidney, liver, stomach, and neurological damage—nothing you want.
Whether and to what extent you encounter any of these germs or toxins depends on the water source and local geography and industry. “It’s generally believed that the deeper the water source, the safer it may be because the water is filtered through the sediment and soil as it rises upward,” Dr. Sullivan says. But nothing’s stopping nearby pollutants or microbes from trickling in once the water surfaces, he adds. Not to mention, soil runoff from a storm could swarm even a once-clean source with new pollutants at any time.
There’s also no way to tell if a given water supply harbors germs or other toxins by just its appearance, taste, or smell, Dr. Sullivan says. You’d have to test it—which is precisely what’s required of public water systems in this country. States have to screen for nearly 100 possible contaminants (including everything listed above, and even several specific “forever chemicals” added in April 2024) and keep levels below the max deemed safe by EPA regulations—thanks again to the trusty SDWA. (Since the PFAS are a new addition, states have until 2027 to complete testing and until 2029 to reduce levels if they exceed the EPA standards.) Every municipality also has to provide an annual report with the results of these tests, which you can find for free using this online search tool, Dr. Nestle notes. (And for folks who get their water from a private well not subject to these standards, the EPA also offers guidance for getting it tested at a certified laboratory and treated should the results show contaminants in unsafe quantities.)
There’s also no evidence that raw water has any benefits over tap water.
It might seem like water collected from the ground could contain more natural minerals than water that’s purified and funneled through pipes—but that’s simply not true. Since minerals aren’t included in the list of items that the EPA requires states to remove from tap water, they generally leave ’em in there. In fact, research conducted by the USDA found no substantial differences in mineral content between well water (which isn’t subject to municipal treatment) and tap water, and a separate study found that tap water across the US can contain high amounts of calcium, magnesium, and sodium. That’s because, with the exception of reverse osmosis—which is used sparingly, in instances where recycled or saltwater is being treated—typical water purification processes aren’t designed to suck out molecules that tiny. Hence why you might wind up with very “hard” or mineral-rich tap water that leaves white deposits on surfaces and dries out your hair.
It is true that mineral content of both tap and raw water varies across the country, Dr. Sullivan says, based on the surrounding soil and rock. For instance, areas with a lot of limestone, like the Midwest, have water that is higher in calcium, he notes. So it’s possible that springs in certain areas might contain slightly higher mineral content than tap water in others. But the difference here is negligible (and certainly not worth potentially exposing yourself to dangerous contaminants), given the total amount of minerals you’re going to get from any water is only a small portion of what you need. Eating more vegetables is a far more efficient tactic if you’re looking to up your intake of any certain mineral, Dr. Nestle says.
The concept that raw water is better for you than tap because of the things it may lack—like chemicals used for purification—is also a myth. Yes, disinfectants like chlorine, chloramine, and chlorine dioxide are added to municipal water to zap the nasty germs that may be swimming around in there. But levels of these must be kept below set safety thresholds. (They’re included on that list of substances that the EPA requires states to monitor in public water.) So the potential difference in chemical levels in tap versus raw water will be marginal—and just as inconsequential as the difference in mineral content.
The only other additive you might bypass by opting for raw water is fluoride—which you actually want to consume. (“Might” is the keyword there, since fluoride is naturally found in almost all soil and rocks, and raw water undoubtedly picks up some of it as it passes through, Dr. Sullivan notes.) Extra fluoride has been purposefully added to tap water for more than 75 years to help prevent cavities, and its usage “correlates with an impressive rise in dental health,” Dr. Sullivan says. Contrary to the fluoride conspiracy theories that abound, the only potential negative effects of consuming it (which are the formation of white spots in children’s teeth, or a very rare condition causing joint stiffness) occur when you get way too much of it—well above the threshold that the EPA enforces for tap water. So taking in somewhat less fluoride via raw water won’t do anything good for your health…and could actually just make you more susceptible to dental issues.
Tap water isn’t always perfect—but it’s undoubtedly safer than raw water.
The noise around raw water tends to drown out an important truth: Access to the kind of drinkable tap water we have in this country is “the most extraordinary luxury,” Dr. Nestle says. Elsewhere in the world, there are epidemics of waterborne diseases caused by inadequate access to clean water—as many as 2 billion people do not have safe drinking water, according to the 2023 UN World Water Development Report, and nearly that many people die yearly from related illnesses. But here? “Nobody remembers cholera, and nobody remembers typhoid because we don’t have them anymore,” Dr. Nestle says. “And we don’t have them anymore because we’ve got chlorinated water.”
Still, like most types of infrastructure, there are imperfections in our treatment systems that allow for some water-related disease outbreaks. For example, there has been a recent uptick in infections of the bacteria Legionella (which causes a severe type of pneumonia called Legionnaires’ disease). While this microbe is on the list of EPA-regulated contaminants that water utilities are required to keep at bay, it may multiply in pipes after leaving treatment facilities—especially when the water in them is stagnant for a while. There’s also the continued issue of lead pipes, as demonstrated by the horrors of the Flint water crisis. Though Congress prohibited the installation of new lead pipes in 1986, millions of old ones are still in use, with the potential to leach the toxic substance into water if its chemistry is ripe for corrosion. (In Flint, failure to properly treat the river water source with the right chemicals to adjust its acidity caused the lead in people’s pipes to degrade and shed into the water.) Just this past October, however, the EPA released its new Lead and Copper Improvements Rule, requiring that all lead pipes delivering water to people’s homes be removed and replaced with a safer material in the next 10 years.
Clearly, that’s a massive project, and efforts to improve aging infrastructure will continue to be a moving target. In the meantime, if you’re concerned about germs or lead in your water, you can reference the annual water report for your municipality noted above or even use this link to get in touch with a state-certified lab in your area to have your water tested. (Should anything crop up in the results, reach out to your local public health department for next steps.) You can also buy a water filter for your faucet or fridge that’s capable of catching the contaminant(s) you’re worried about—this CDC page is a helpful reference.
Tap-water concerns notwithstanding, substituting with raw water is like flushing decades of progress toward purification down the drain: It’s a lot riskier. That doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to get sick every time you drink it, Dr. Nestle explains. But in choosing a water source that’s untreated, you’re “infinitely” more likely to wind up infected or ill than if you were to gulp from the tap, she says. And remember, there’s not even a potential reward for taking the gamble. As Dr. Sullivan puts it: “It’s aquatic Russian roulette.”
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Originally Appeared on Self
