More money than sense

Sure indicators that you’re dealing with a quack: the magic words “detox” and “cleanse”. I’ve heard so many people babble about drinking algae or having wheatgrass squirted up their butt to somehow scour poisons out of their bloodstream and colon. Yvette D’Entremont is here to tell you that none of it works.

Let me point out: In order to be detoxed, you first have to be, well, “toxed.” And you’re probably not. If you actually had a build-up of heavy metals or pesticides in your body, you’d be crazy sick. There are specific symptoms to having both of these “toxins” inside of you. In fact, different metals and pesticides have specific symptoms, like muscle spasms and breathing difficulties. Bottom line? Breakouts and feeling a little rundown aren’t symptoms of any of them, and you need REAL MEDICINE — dimercaprol chelation and atropine, respectively — for treatment. Not juice.

Meanwhile, at the same time and often involving the same detox fanatics, people are paying premium prices for “raw water”.

In San Francisco, “unfiltered, untreated, un-sterilized spring water” from Live Water is selling for $60.99 for a 2.5 gallon jug — and it’s flying off the shelves, the New York Times reported. Startups dedicated to untreated water are gaining steam. Zero Mass Water, which allows people to collect water from the atmosphere near their homes, has already raised $24 million in venture capital.

People — including failed startup Juicero’s cofounder Doug Evans — are gathering gallons of untreated water from natural springs, venturing out onto private property by night to get the water. Evans told The Times that he and his friends brought 50 gallons of raw water to Burning Man.

You know, fish poop in that stuff. Have you ever heard of Giardia? How about amebic meningoencephalitis?

On the bright side, though, I’m thinking of shipping raw Lake Crystal Water from Minnesota to Silicon Valley and making a good profit. The name sounds like a marketing dream, but those of us who live here know it is actually a large shallow pond, one step up from a swamp, with dairy farm runoff trickling in on one side, and a nice squishy layer of duckshit on the bottom. It’s incredibly raw. I ought to be able to charge double for the magnitude of its rawness.

One sip, though, and you’ll probably need a detox/cleanse. If I sell those, too, I’ll be making money off them coming and going! I’m gonna be so rich I’ll be morally obligated to vote Republican.