A) This is entirely irrelevant to my point. The point was, the body takes in things it finds useful, and discards the ones it doesn't. Ethanol gets filtered o

A) This is entirely irrelevant to my point. The point was, the body takes in things it finds useful, and discards the ones it doesn't. Ethanol gets filtered out. And it's rough on your organs if it has to do it too often. Those are the first principles. B) The whole "wine as a replacement for water" thing is bullshit. Alcohol is a diuretic; when you drink wine, your net hydration is negative. C) Tainted juice is a non-issue if it's fresh; fruit is one of the safer things you can eat, especially vine fruits, since they don't contact the ground much. If it's spoiled juice... after a certain point it's alcoholic. Ethanol is the by-product of spoilage in grape juice. D) It's possible that alcohol in conjunction with food reduces contaminants in the food, but I find it highly unlikely this is the reason people started to and continue to drink; it seems that getting buzzed is the more plausible explanation.