Bottled air

Vitality Air, registered in March, 2015 sells

varying sized cans of pressurized air
sourced in Lake Louise and Banff and tested
by a local air sampling lab for maximum
purity.

Vitality Air founder Moses Lam

A bottle containing 7.7 litres of Lake Louise

air retails for $32 online, comes with an
attached breathing mask and promises
“upwards of 150 inhalations.”

Empty cans filled with premium “air” have

long been sold as a novelty product. In
Iceland tourist shops, visitors can pick up a
can of “fresh mountain air.” For a brief
period in the 1960s, the Canadian Western
Natural Gas company gave out cans of
“Alberta Fresh Air” as a marketing
gimmick.
But Vitality Air is now seeking wealthy
buyers who believe a few puffs of mountain
air will cure a hangover or help them train
for a marathon.
Even in the thick smog of Beijing, however,
there is no scientific evidence that the
occasional can of Banff air will have any
measurable health benefits.
“They’re not really shipping anything that
could be expected to make people feel better
or improve their performance beyond a
placebo effect,” said Shawn Aaron, director
of the Canadian Respiratory Research
Network.
“But if China wants to pay Canadians to
send them air, do we want to discourage
that?” At the very least, Aaron noted,
Vitality Air will not do any harm. “You can’t
overdose on air,” he said.
Dr. Chris Carlsten, director of the
Occupational Lung Disease Clinic at
Vancouver General Hospital, agreed that 7.7
liters of fresh air is far too small to make a
difference. “I think the only harm would be
to the pocketbook,” he said.
The cans do not contain pure oxygen, so it
does not deliver a mild “high.” It doesn’t
smell of pine or rushing water. And unless
it’s pre-chilled, it doesn’t have the crisp
refreshing taste of a Banff morning.
As advertised, Vitality Air is a can of lightly
pressurized air: 80 per cent nitrogen, 20
per cent oxygen and no particulates or toxic
gases. “Ingredients: 100% Pure Rocky
Mountain Air,” read the can.
The core product is free, of course, and the
mask-equipped bottles can be purchased on
the e-commerce site Alibaba.com for as
little as $2 per unit.
As Vitality Air’s marketing materials note,
“remember the day when people laughed off
bottled water?”