Magical Water

I know everything there is to know about food plans, diets, and how to best eat to maximize good health. I try and cook healthy food, and we try very hard to follow whatever the latest fad is: paleo! 5:2! Vegan! Sugar-Free! I don’t believe in diets, and yet every time a new fad comes out, I pretend it isn’t a diet and find myself believing everything I read.

Knowing how to eat healthily and doing it, are two very different propositions. After a while, I go back to making what I always make, until the next fad comes along. Right now, we’re all fed up with roast chicken and meatloaf. And I don’t know what to do next, so now that it’s the new year, I decided to find a nutritionist to come and talk to the whole family about food, and what we should all be eating. Perhaps she could give me some ideas.

Two friends recommended the same woman which was surely a good sign. I phoned her up, and we had a lovely chat, during which I was telling her what a typical food day was for us, what I tended to cook, what we ate, what we didn’t eat.

“Do you drink water?” she asked, suddenly.

“Oh yes!” I replied, proudly. “Lots of water. Two to three large bottles a day!”

I expected a hearty verbal clap on the back, but instead there was a long pause before she asked darkly, “What kind of water.”

I suspected this was a trick question. I considered lying and saying I only drank bottled water, but couldn’t do it.

“Just tap.” I said, which was clearly not just the wrong answer, but the worst of the worst.

It was as if I had pressed a hidden button. The nutritionist started talking about some kind of water that had a magical effect on your body. She said it contained anti-oxidants, was brilliantly alkalizing, had magical healing properties. She invoked the names of several celebrities who, she said, had these special magical healing filters all over their houses (I happen to know one of the celebrities very well, and I am almost certain she doesn’t have these filters. She doesn’t seem the type).

She then said that although she was no longer selling the water (warning sign!), she had a friend who lived in my area and would drop some off at no charge.

The next day a very nice woman showed up who had driven 45 minutes to get to my house and haul two giant bottles of water to my doorstep. “I’ll drop off new bottles every day!” she said cheerily as I wondered if she had gone mad. “It needs to be fresh. It’s no problem”.

I will admit, my suspicion levels were now through the roof. Who drives an hour and a half to drop off fresh water on a daily basis? And why? And what does it all mean? With the smell of conspiracy theories fresh in my nostrils, I started to Google to discover this is, indeed one of those pyramid marketing scams, and the water has been scientifically proven to do absolutely…nothing.

I sent her an email thanking her for all her trouble but informing her I wouldn’t be needing any more bottled water delivered. Then I picked up an empty water bottle and refilled it from the tap. Next time I am asked if I drink bottled water, I shall say yes.