From: gts (gts_2000@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Apr 24 2003 - 04:29:40 MDT
Fabio wrote:
> Going back for a moment to the very first message of this
> thread.
In case it's not clear to everyone, "this thread," is splattered all over
the place. It began with discussion of diet and health in a thread called
"FITNESS: Diet and Exercise" started as I recall by one of our fearless
leaders during the height of the massive pixel crunch here about Iraq. Then
thanks probably to my obnoxious tenacity about paleodiet theory it moved to
a new thread called "Evolution and Diet (was FITNESS: Diet and Exercise)."
The discussion has finally landed here in its proper place, thanks I think
to Eliezer who responded to me here from the second thread above.
> The theory goes that in Europe people discovered brewing,
> relying on the alcohol content of beer to do the job, while
> in the Far East people discovered tea, relying on the boiling
> of water to do probably a better job.
I'm pretty sure wine appeared well before beer. Wine is a natural product of
nature, found in the fermenting fruits that prehistoric peoples surely ate
while scavenging for food. I imagine prehistoric peoples of the late
paleolithic noticing the pleasant intoxicating effects of fermented fruit
and gathering such fruits into a bowl to make primitive wine. It's possible
they also made beer, but this seems much less likely given that it requires
grains. Beer appeared probably at about the same time as agriculture --
about 12,000 B.C.
> Given that beer
> consumption was not restricted to adults in those times,
> selection encouraged the spread of genes for alcohol
> detoxifying enzymes in the liver. In other words, so the
> theory goes, infants that were given water were more likely
> to die due to infection than those that were given beer were
> likely to die due to liver problems.
Yes. Same for wine. Alcohol keeps the bacteria at bay. This was also the
justification for "Grog" in later years, the main drink of sailors. Ho Ho
Hum and a Bottle of Rum...
-gts
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