cricket

This is an interesting topic.. anyone else?

Gurdur

um, I think I have to disagree with a lot of initial premises on this thread.

Sorry, theyeti, if I start off with you; it's just that this general topic is fascinating to me {and I'm a pompously opinionated bastard }

um, you've never been to Africa? Specifically, say west, east and south Africa? They're really into alcohol often, and often excessive drinking, and didn't need the Western world to introduce brewing.

How about milk? Lactose tolerance in adults is primarily a northern European trait, and apparently had a lot to do with competitive benefits in diet.

I doubt one can say that brewing represents the producing of grain-stuffs into something that keeps longer; very few of the worser parasitical organisms are really worried by beer or wine even, and an uninterrupted diet of brandy has its own problems.
Wine at least does represent a slightly better drink than water in some parts; but again, people just didn't drink wine only; in fact, it was common to mix water with wine.
Beer-brewing brings along the additional load of ergot-similar problems.

Alcohol is usually contra-indicated when someone already has an infective illness, and I'm not aware of evidence that shows any real protective role.

[ February 09, 2002: Message edited by: Gurdur ]</p>

theyeti

Yeah, well you're gonna PAY for this! No one disagrees with me and gets away with it! No one, you hear?! Just kiddin' -- I generally admire your "bastardly opinions".

No, I haven't been to Africa, and point well taken. I was thinking more about Westren civilization as opposed to Asian and ancient American civilizations that were also highly advanced in terms of agriculture. I might be wrong, but I don't think that alcohol was consumed by them to the extent that it was in Europe and the Medditerranean region. At least nowadays, native Americans are highly suceptible to alcoholism and many Asians can't digest it properly. I now think (though I didn't when I wrote what I did earlier) that producing alcoholic beverages allowed Westren cultures to get the most out of their harvests, and thus maintain larger populations.

How about milk? I suppose it could have something to do with it too, but the subject here is alceehol. One thing's for sure, no one drinks lots of milk to gain courage before battle. And another thing, milk has to be stored long term in the form of cheese or butter, or else it will spoil quickly. It is the ability of grains/fruits to be stored long term that gives alcoholic beverages their advantage. So the proper analogy here is milk--&gt;butter as grain--&gt;beer. Incidentally, you can ferment milk to make an alcoholic beverage. There are nomadic tribes in westren Asia that do this with yak milk, but apparently it tastes like shit.

I'm sure that there are some parasites that are immune to the 7-14% alcohol content of beer and wine, but relatively few. Beer and wine aren't totally safe from spoilage, but they're a whole heck-uv-a-lot safer than their unfermented counterparts. Keep in mind that the fermentation process stops when the alcohol content is high enough for the yeast to die. It's pretty good at stoping microorganisms.

Furthermore, before fermenting, the yeast will sap a sealed container of it's oxygen, leaving it unsuitable for any aerobic organisms that are left. Ancient peoples learned quickly that unless you sealed the container, you would get spoiled mess with no alcohol. You then leave it sealed until you're ready to drink it, and it remains good for years. Once it's opened of course, it's got a limited shelf-life.

As for brandy, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it's a distillate. It wouldn't be useful for food as beer and wine are, just entertainment. And I'm not sure that the earlier beer and wine producing civilizations knew how to distill spirits.

And this probably had a purifying effect on the water, which is the point about stopping disease. People water down thier wine because its alcohol content is quite high, and in many places in the ancient world, that's all they had to drink besides impure water.

Quite the contrary, ergot is exactly why brewing beer is a good idea. Ergot is a mold that grows on rye, and the longer you leave the rye sitting around in a moist granery, the more likely it is to become ergot infected (not to mention eaten by rats). But if you take that rye and make beer out of it, you've effectively stored your rye in an erot-proof (and rat-proof) manner that can be enjoyed with your fellow Sumerians while watching the big game.

I wouldn't argue that alcohol can get rid of infections and illnesses that you already have. I think its primary value is in storing excess harvests, especially grains, for future consumption. A secondary value might be in purifying water, and a tertiary value might be in the violence it induces. Or mabey not. It think it's safe to say that Westren civilization has grown up around alcohol, and thus we are adapted to its effects, for better or worse.

theyeti

[ February 09, 2002: Message edited by: theyeti ]</p>

Coragyps

IIRC, the Mongol Horde of Genghis Khan drank fermented mare's milk. Small wonder they were so fierce.

Gurdur

um, thanks! That was quite a nice thing to say


Rhe Africans show a great tolerance to alcohol too, though however it really can be the source of many, many social and medical problems.
However, as you point out, that has bugger-all to do with the Europeans and this topic. Forgive my illegal redirectional efforts - I just like scrambling in reminiscince.

IIRC, Shaka banned alcohol for his Zulu troops while they were on campaign.

um, caught. I just had a good story involving milk, Vikings and skraelings (probabaly Inuit) in Greenland. But I should start a seperate thread on that. Sorry.

um, mostly right, I'll save it for elsewhere.

Yep, drunk fermented milk quite often myself when travelling, though never tasted yak's milk.

um, isn't it only up 6% at most for beer? And parents fed their kids in Europe mostly on "small beer", around 1 to 2 % at most.
This actually doesn't invalidate your point at all, though, since after worrying about this for a while I thought that the most common problems would be greatly wiped out even in "small beer". Sorry to rather quibble pointlessly !


Point taken.


Point taken.

um, point taken, though I think most ergot itself occurs in the field, not granary, and I was thinking along the lines of ergot-like fungi that leave pregnancy-suppressant chemicals back in the grain in low levels (a speculation of a woman scientist whose name escapes me, though I can look it up, who wrote a great book on ergot etc.)


On reflection, I have to admit you're very right, I think, though I'm still not sure that it played such a large role compared to other things .... but enough of my illegal redirections and attempted hijacking.

Yep! Agreed in full. Mention should be made of mead and metheglin too, since they reinforce your point!

bozman007

Boy, this interesting stuff!

phaedrus

theyeti

Regarding the remarks about asians...are you referring to the study linking cancer and alcohol consumption among asians? I was wondering about the method used (sample size) and conclusions drawn....any comments??

Quetzal

I just read an article recently (and damn me if I can remember where - Eastern Economist?) that speculated alcoholic beverages actually predated agriculture. The desire to have a ready and easily harvested supply of beer-making grains may have, in fact, led to the domestication of grain. (Before everyone says No! in loud and dogmatic voices , consider that many pastoral, hunter-gatherer, and primitive swidden agriculturalists have loooong traditions of fermenting various things.)

Just an interesting speculation, AFAIK. Pardon me while I go investigate the restorative properties of single malt...

theyeti

Yes, that's the enzyme. From a brief glance, it seems to be a linkage study that found the location of the gene. It's pretty much the same as in all classical genetics studies, so I don't see anything wrong with the methods. However, you'll have to give me a referrence if you want more info. The paper I have is Steinmetz et al., Structure of mitochondrial aldehyde dehydrogenase: the genetic component of ethanol aversion, Structure 1997, Vol 5 No 5. The enzyme has the mutation E487K (which means that glutamate 487 is replaced with a lysine). This has the effects of upsetting the enzyme's tetrameric structure as reported in Weiner et al., Sububit communication in tetrameric class 2 human liver aldehyde dehydrogenase as the basis for half-of-the-site reactivity and the dominace of the oriental subunit in a heterotetramer. Chemico-Biological Interactions 130-132 (2001) 47-56.

So regrardless of any problems with the initial study, the enzyme and the mutation that causes the ethanol aversion is well characterized.

theyeti

phaedrus

theyeti

Its at the alcoholism - clinical and experimental research....i had access to the abstract, which i have posted..High Salivary Acetaldehyde After a Moderate Dose of Alcohol in ALDH2-Deficient Subjects: Strong Evidence for the Local Carcinogenic Action of Acetaldehyde
Alcoholism 24(6): 873; Dec 2000

Authors :Satu Väkeväinen, Jyrki Tillonen, Dharam P. Agarwal, Nidhi Srivastava, and Mikko Salaspuro

<a href="http://www.alcoholism-cer.com" target="_blank">http://www.alcoholism-cer.com</a>

search keyword "asian"

PS : Is it normal to take a sample size of 20 and extrapolate the findings/conclusion to the entire asian population (since i havent seen the whole paper, i dont know what they meant by "asian")