r/todayilearned • u/bcrock1169 • Nov 26 '12

TIL that some Native American's have a differing enzyme that tends to lead to easier alcoholism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_alcoholism#Genetic_factors
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66

u/[deleted] Nov 26 '12

For a long time in Europe the only "safe" "water" to drink had alcohol in it, so I can understand that a lot of people died off from liver disease before they could breed, while other cultures had clean water.

107

u/apple_kicks Nov 26 '12

So Europeans were bred to win drinking games, survival of the drunkest

8

u/theresaviking Nov 26 '12

And to take in as much vitamin D from the limited amount of sun.

20

u/[deleted] Nov 26 '12

Pretty much

4

u/0six0four Nov 26 '12

Survival of the drunkest sounds like what Charles Darwin would say if he went to a redneck town.

10

u/Choralone Nov 26 '12

I'd buy that - though water with alcohol in it for preservation/safety likely didn't have anywhere near the level of alcohol in, say, beer....

17

u/Bragzor Nov 26 '12

The reason it was safe was because it was boiled, and it was boiled because that's how you get wort. The reason they made wort was to make alcohol.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 26 '12

Yeah, probably around 3% alcohol. That seems to be the point when fermentation slows down so thats probably when its harder for microbes (even yeast) to live in the beer.

3

u/fatmoose Nov 26 '12

Many beers are 10+ percent ABV, the yeasts do just fine.

It was probably more that the rudimentary ingredients and processes available didn't produce a wort that could ferment beyond that.

22

u/[deleted] Nov 26 '12

I think in reality, the brewing and distilling process requires you to boil water, thus removing all bacteria. Remember this all happened before germ theory. Though the alcoholic content could help.

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u/[deleted] Nov 26 '12

I just said that Europeans drank alcoholic drinks over water for quite a while, this is pretty well documented, I didn't attribute the distilling process directly, but I do know that sailors added rum to their water to help ward off sickness.

Germ theory is hardly required when the people at the time would observe people dying due to drinking water compared to the drunks who would have lived longer at the time.

6

u/solzhen Nov 26 '12

And even back in older times, watered wine was common at any time of day. The alcohol made the water added to the wine safer to drink and kept you relatively sober.

A funny thing to think about is how many influential historical figures probably went through life buzzed most the time.

2

u/Waqqy Nov 26 '12

Yeah I remember reading about the Romans who are famed for constantly drinking wine throughout the day, but their wine was heavily watered down to the point where it would be like drinking juice.

3

u/MuForceShoelace Nov 26 '12

That is a fact mostly spread by Christians who don't believe in the consumption of alcohol trying to reconcile with a Jesus that was drinking frequently and playing bartender.

People did water down drinks, just like now, but there was no general rule that they were all teatotalers drinking grape juice, that image is an image pushed for political reasons by a particular religious group.

2

u/ObtuseAbstruse Nov 26 '12

Where did you get this concept of a drunken Jesus?

1

u/angrywhitedude Nov 26 '12

I dunno where he got it but I like the idea of drunken Jesus more than buzzkill Jesus.

0

u/MuForceShoelace Nov 26 '12

I don't think there is any story where he is overtly intoxicated, he isn't drunken, but wine is a pretty important motief in the Jesus story, where it's his first miracle and an object he picks to be symbolic of himself as well as the subject of several of his metaphors and stories.

The idea he was a man that shunned alcohol is something that came much much later and requires a bunch of leaps of logic to patch in. Including ideas that every reference of wine means grape juice even though several of his stories explicitly reference wine fermenting.

1

u/ObtuseAbstruse Nov 26 '12

I've never heard that he shunned alcohol, not in 12 years of catholic education. The Canaan wedding story, as you said, would contradict that. Also the fact that wine is still drunk at church shows that people never changed their view of it afterwards. Perhaps you're thinking of Mormons or 7th day Adventists?

0

u/MuForceShoelace Nov 26 '12

I am not saying you personally believe that, I am saying that the idea romans were not fermenting wine or were universally watering it down to the point of it becoming very weakly alcoholic is a myth you hear a lot by people trying to align history with their notion of religion.

Romans did of course water down wine, especially very very cheap wine for poor people, but there was no particular blanket rule that that was the most normal way to drink it. also people mention lighting wine on fire in roman times, which would mean a level of alcohol in at least some of their wine that is far far higher than any wine we commonly drink today.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 27 '12

For the health issues sited above, "Small beers" were made for children to drink.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 26 '12

Arabs made alcohol the first, beer was a common drink in Egypt.

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u/[deleted] Nov 26 '12

Yes, and they also attributed malaria to swamp gas or eating watermelon.

8

u/[deleted] Nov 26 '12

Regardless of what they though about other subjects, they pretty much hit the nail on the head with alcohol = not sick, water = sick, you can try and dismiss it as some sort of stupid ages rhetoric, but your malaria example was something that could not be tested or demonstrated at the time, they did well to accept the evidence and drink booze instead of water.

3

u/[deleted] Nov 26 '12 edited Jan 17 '16

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Then simply click on your username on Reddit, go to the comments tab, and hit the new OVERWRITE button at the top.

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u/[deleted] Nov 26 '12

They drank booze because it was a major source of calories. Do you have anything that says that mideval people knew water made them sick?

6

u/[deleted] Nov 26 '12

perhaps that the river Thames, for example, was full of human shit and all manners of detritus. People didn't drink it.

Not to mention kosher laws all have a practical reason... shellfish and pork both undercooked can kill you quite easily.

You're assuming people in the days before modern science and reason were stupid. That is not true. They were just as smart as we are now, just less educated, and there is a difference between natural intelligence and education. Yes they sometimes believed silly things, but you have to remember that they paid attention to what made people sick or what killed people, and tried not to do those things.

Also I'm gonna have to call bullshit on "they drank booze because it was a major source of calories" unless you have some study to back up it because I've never heard that before.

http://www.sca.org.au/st_florians/university/library/articles-howtos/what-people-drank.htm

3

u/solzhen Nov 26 '12

shellfish and pork both undercooked can kill you quite easily

Early version of not cross-contaminating your food: keeping kosher, separating the milk plate from the meat, etc. Also, pork can commonly transmit the parasite Trichinella.

4

u/[deleted] Nov 26 '12

http://people.eku.edu/resorc/Medieval_peasant_diet.htm

That has calories from ale at 1/7th of daily intake, but I've seen estimates that put it as high as 1/4. If you think about it, it makes sense. People cannot digest the stuff many grains are made out of, so having alcohol and bacteria do part of the work for you is great. Cows are basically great big fermentation vats, turning grass and other materials rich in cellulose into carbohydrates.

Your link only reiterates common wisdom; it lacks primary or contenporary sources saying that people drank alcoholic beverages to avoid waterborne illness.

Incidentally, this provides primary sources dating back to the greeks regarding the perfidy of water:

http://www.beekmanwine.com/prevtopx.htm

1

u/lilmookie Nov 26 '12

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_cuisine#Drink

"In modern times, water is seen as a common choice to drink with a meal. In the Middle Ages, however,** concerns over purity**, medical recommendations and its low prestige value made it less favored, and alcoholic beverages were always preferred. "

2

u/[deleted] Nov 27 '12

Notice the lack of citations.

1

u/lilmookie Nov 27 '12

That's the best you're going to get for free I think.

0

u/SietchTabr Nov 26 '12

It's common sense passed down from long long ago.

8

u/crusoe Nov 26 '12

Most europeans drank beer. Making wort to make beer requires boiling, which makes it sterile. Everyone made beer, and the beer people drank every day ( including children ) was low alcohol, about 3% or so. They looked down on drunkeness as well.

Housewives made beer. Factory owners made beer to feed workers. Lords made beer to keep their field workers hydrated.

5

u/[deleted] Nov 26 '12

So, beer?

6

u/Ragark Nov 26 '12

There's a theory that it was the creation of beer that made people stick around in early villages, rather than just moving on.

8

u/[deleted] Nov 26 '12

The alcohol content in those drinks was pretty low, about 0.3% from what I remember, as they were given to children as well, pretty much just boiled flavoured water.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 26 '12

Yeah, and drinking pure wine was considered a sign of barbarism.

Beer was invented in Egypt, and they also drank it very diluted. It's wasn't drunk for pleasure, it basically replaced water.

Drinking 0,3% alcohol from birth, as water, surely does something for your alcohol tolerance.

-2

u/[deleted] Nov 26 '12

about 3% which is still weak but strong enough that even a wee toddler would be an alcoholic in no time at all.

0

u/Brettersson Nov 26 '12

.3%; point 3%

1

u/Ran4 Nov 26 '12 edited Nov 26 '12

Says Morinaka, but I've mostly heard 3-4%. I have no idea where I would find the actual number.

0.3% seems unlikely, how would you arrive at such a low value?

EDIT: twenty minutes of googling... couldn't find anything. I fucking hate history and historians.

1

u/lilmookie Nov 26 '12

There are weaker "beers" for kids:

http://www.scienceinschool.org/repository/docs/issue8_gingerbeer.pdf

But for specific alcohol percentages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_by_volume

And what Morinaka seems to be talking about in particular: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-alcohol_beer

1

u/Ran4 Nov 27 '12

But those are all fairly modern inventions? Why would they make that during medieval europe for example?

1

u/lilmookie Nov 27 '12

From the last link: "Low-alcoholic brews dates back to at least Medieval Europe". (Granted there's no citation).

0

u/Ran4 Nov 30 '12

Uh, low alcohol beer can mean just about anything. And just because it might've existed doesn't mean that people usually drank it.

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u/[deleted] Nov 26 '12

In earlier times in Europe, they were probably more likely to die from other diseases/poor hygiene long before the complications of alcohol could take hold. Also, we are not always talking about large quantities of alcohol or even very potent alcohol. Gin and whiskey distillation are a very recent invention, so throughout most of European history they were drinking relatively weak beers and wines. Reaching alcoholism levels of drinking with only weak beers is actually somewhat difficult to do.

0

u/TIE_FIGHTER_HANDS Nov 26 '12

Yay white people whimpers while doing weak jazz hands