The Bulletproof Coffee Guy Wants Us to Drink Oily Water Now

Hydration isn't that difficult a concept to master. Down your eight glasses of water a day and up the levels when it's hot outside or you're moving your limbs more than usual. If warthogs can gather around watering holes and fulfil this basic survival instinct, then there can't be much reason for us to overthink things.

And yet, humans love overthinking their liquid intake. Vitamin drinks, electrolyte soda, herbal infusions, caffeinated maple water, almond milk that may not actually contain almonds …

The latest addition to the roster of supposedly hydration-boosting beverages comes courtesy of Dave Asprey, the American health guru and self-proclaimed "biohacker" whose bulletproof coffee invention had us all heaping butter into our lattes and waiting to be transformed into elite, Sudoku-completing super runners last year.

The name of this new liquid innovation? FATwater.

Also based on the fusion of oil and water, the bottled drink contains the patented coconut oil nanoparticles used in bulletproof coffee that Asprey claims help the body absorb water and increase hydration. It promises a "clean burning" fuel from fat, rather than the sugar found in many energy drinks.

"Your body likes Bulletproof XCT oil more than water as it is fuel. When they're together, the body soaks up water more quickly than it normally would," Asprey told industry website BeverageDaily.com. Increased hydration through the combination of oil and water is also the thinking behind bulletproof coffee, and something Asprey says he developed from drinking yak tea with butter in Tibet.

While the health benefits of stirring butter into caffeinated beverages have been questioned since the bulletproof coffee trend took off (Gizmodo pointed out that by putting two tablespoons of butter and one tablespoon of Asprey's special oil in your morning coffee, you consume 140 percent of your recommended daily allowance for saturated fat before you've even taken a bite of real food), he maintains that the fat in FATwater is quickly metabolised for energy.

Health claims aside, what does the stuff actually taste like? According to the Huffington Post, Asprey says that FATwater "is not meant to be creamy" like bulletproof coffee but is "pearlescent" and "feels wetter on the tongue."

Wet on the tongue. So, kind of like water?

Well, yes. But then FATwater is also vegan, Paleo, gluten free, non-GMO, and contains less than 30 calories.

A gluten and dairy free, low calorie liquid with no genetically modified organisms? Funny—it reminds me of another healthy drink, except this one comes without a $29.95 price tag.