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> because water used to be much harder to sanitize They actually addressed this in the article, but sanitizing water is as simple as boiling it which is much l
by leafmeal 5y ago
> because water used to be much harder to sanitize
They actually addressed this in the article, but sanitizing water is as simple as boiling it which is much less involved than the process of making beer.
- jacobolus 5y agoI’m no expert on ancient Mesopotamian/Egyptian theories of disease, but my understanding is that people knew that water with even a bit of alcohol was significantly less likely to get you sick than river water, and drinking beer was (in part) an intentional countermeasure. Beyond that, in an ancient context you can’t indefinitely store your boiled water and expect it to stay uncontaminated. If you are on a construction site, boiling all of your drinking water every day before use sounds a lot less convenient than just storing beer. Moreover, if laborers were all drinking water they would still need to eat something.
- rkk3 5y ago> sanitizing water is as simple as boiling It may be simple but it takes a lot of energy to boil & you can't store it. They didn't have the convenience of electric kettles.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]