Possibly one of the most quoted sayings in the world is “Blood is thicker than water,” a quote meant to emphasize the importance of family over outsiders. However, this saying actually means the opposite. The full quote is “The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb,” which means that chosen relationships are stronger than inherited ones.
The widely attributed meaning tends to position blood as a stronger force of existence and puts water at the base. While this is understandable, it remains an uneven judgment of water. This brings to mind the story of two fishes swimming along when they meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys, how’s the water?” The two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one looks over at the other and asks, “What the hell is water?” This is the situation of water to many—what the hell is water?
For humans, unlike the two fishes, the understanding and consciousness of the importance of water is quite evident. In fact, the preponderance of water over food is evident in the fewer days humans can survive without water compared to food. While we can survive without food for 30 days or more, we cannot survive without water for more than 15 days or less, depending on age, weight, activity, and climate.
The panoply of water benefits is obvious, yet the type of water that is highly fashionable for drinking remains the subject of conflicting medical claims. Ironically, while water is the drink that first steered the course of human development, the history of drinking has gone far, to a degree where certain individuals celebrate wine and other expensive drinks ahead of water. Rumors have it that Prof. Wole Soyinka, the first African to win a Nobel Prize in Literature, has not tasted water for over 25 years, relying only on wine. However, if we explore the history of drinking, it tilts toward many drinks, but the future of drinking is most likely going back to its source: water.
Much of the appeal of other beverages, starting with beer in the Neolithic period, was that they were less likely than water to be contaminated. Only when the microbiological basis of water contamination began to be unraveled in the nineteenth century did it become feasible to tackle a problem that had bedeviled humans for centuries: maintaining an adequate supply of fresh water. Where previous generations turned to other drinks as substitutes, it is now possible to address the problem of contamination directly through water purification and other improvements in sanitation.
Water’s growing popularity suggests that the danger of contamination is finally receding. But the reality is rather more complicated. Indeed, nowhere is the gulf between the developed and developing worlds more apparent than in their attitudes toward water.
Across the globe, sales of bottled water are booming, with the highest levels of consumption in the developed world, where tap water is abundant and safe to drink. In developing countries like Nigeria, there is a prevalence of sachet water, popularly called “pure water”—another case of erroneous naming, as the purity of sachet water is more bizarre than the Dancing Plague of 1518 in Strasbourg.
Literature has documented that Italians are the world’s most enthusiastic consumers of bottled water, drinking an average of 180 liters per person annually. They are closely followed by the French, Belgians, Germans, and Spanish. The global bottled-water industry had revenues of around forty-six billion dollars in 2003, and consumption of bottled water is growing by 11 percent annually, faster than any other drink. Restaurants serve expensive water in designer bottles, and the habit of carrying a small plastic bottle of drinking water at all times, pioneered by supermodels, has become widespread.
The popularity of bottled water stems from the widespread belief that it is healthier and safer than tap water. But tap water, in developed nations at least, is just as safe. While there are occasional contamination scares, they affect bottled water too. In one study published in the Archives of Family Medicine, researchers compared bottled water with tap water from Cleveland, Ohio, and found that a quarter of the bottled water samples had significantly higher levels of bacteria. The scientists concluded that “use of bottled water on the assumption of purity can be misguided.” Another study carried out at the University of Geneva came to the same conclusion, as did a report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, which found that bottled water was no better from a nutritional point of view than ordinary tap water.
In Africa, with its overarching poverty and dejection, there has been a tremendous influx of fake and unhealthy drinks, ranging from alcoholic drinks and beverages to table water and, most concerning, sachet water known as “pure water” to the Nigerian audience. This situation has made it paramount for many individuals to return to water. But going back to water in Africa remains an enigmatic situation because the availability of pure, drinkable water remains questionable.
In recent years, disputes over water rights, particularly in the Middle East and Africa, have caused political tension and even military conflict. Water was, for example, an important unseen factor behind the Six Day War of 1967, when Israel occupied Sinai, the Golan Heights, the West Bank, and Gaza. Ariel Sharon, who was a general at the time and later became Israel’s prime minister, noted in his autobiography that although people usually regard June 5, 1967, as the start of the Six Day War, “in reality, it started two and a half years earlier, on the day Israel decided to act against the diversion of the Jordan.” While blood is thicker than water, water flows further than blood.