2 ms·

I don't know what people or communities those were. Most of us around the world were stuck with whatever water was at hand. Springs are actually pretty dang sca

by batista 15y ago

I don't know what people or communities those were. Most of us around the world were stuck with whatever water was at hand. Springs are actually pretty dang scarce, thus valued and fought over through history. Well, you just haven't lived in any mountainous area with lots of springs then. Tons of places in Europe are like that (and of course elsewhere). Did you have huge plains or vast deserts in mind? For your part of the world, I don't think, say, the guys at the Appalachian had much difficulty getting top notch water. Fruits and vegetables are an order of magnitude cheaper, now that the yields have quintupled and growing seasons been extended thanks to science. Organics maybe aren't any more expensive than all the food was then, I don't know. Well, try any rural village in Southern Europe re: fruits and vegetables. Local produce was more like free. They main problem was getting stuff made abroad/out of season, but you didn't do that, you adjusted your cooking accordingly. That's how local cuisines developed in the first place.

JoeAltmaier 15y ago
For the 18 guys living in the mountains, I guess water might have been less of a problem - other than hauling and storing. For the rest of the world, more of a problem. In America, all rivers and streams are not safe to drink without sterilizing. Even in the mountains. "Like free"? Sounds like a guy that doesn't garden or farm. Produce isn't ever free. It takes an infrastructure of manure, land, water, labor and sanitation to exist at all. And nobody that gardens comes away without blisters. As a kid it may have seemed pretty ubiquitous, I'll imagine. The memories of youth are not to be trusted though.
- batista 15y ago
  For the 18 guys living in the mountains, I guess water might have been less of a problem - other than hauling and storing. For the rest of the world, more of a problem. 18 guys? I think you vastly underestimate the mountain area population. Not everybody lives in Kansas/Nebraska. In America, all rivers and streams are not safe to drink without sterilizing. Even in the mountains. That's TODAY. Not when people USED to get its water for free. And I seriously doubt "all rivers and streams" in the US "are not safe to drink without sterilizing". Sounds more like over-protection to me... Any folks here near safe rivers/springs to chip in? "Like free"? Sounds like a guy that doesn't garden or farm. I'm actually from a rural area and we used to have potatoes, tomatoes, olives, cucumbers, oranges and grapes wine, IN HOUSE. And we weren't even farmers, just something almost everybody around those parts with some available land did. Potatoes for example were just in a patch of land 600 sq feet wide, but we didn't have to buy any. As for olives trees, we had (have) around 50 of those -- the most exhausting thing was beating on them or scraping them to have the olives fall down on special plastic nets, and that took like a week at most. Produce isn't ever free. It takes an infrastructure of manure, land, water, labor and sanitation to exist at all. And nobody that gardens comes away without blisters. The free part comes from the fact that people were doing those things ANYWAY. That was part of their everyday life -- and for those that weren't, it was dead easy to get some, even without buying (there would always be some relative, friend etc to give them some produce).
  - crymer11 15y ago
    I'm from in east Tennessee (in the mountains), and water supply for the neighborhood I grew up in is fed by a natural spring. I worked for the water utility in high school and quite often drank the water from the spring before it was treated. The treatment process was basically adding chlorine to meet government regulations. I've also consumed quite a bit of water from rivers and creeks I've been kayaking on and haven't had an issue yet. * Don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming all water is safe to drink; when I go backpacking, I take a filtration system with me. But I also don't want to get stuck somewhere with digestive tract issues.

by batista 15y ago

JoeAltmaier 15y ago

For the 18 guys living in the mountains, I guess water might have been less of a problem - other than hauling and storing. For the rest of the world, more of a problem. In America, all rivers and streams are not safe to drink without sterilizing. Even in the mountains. "Like free"? Sounds like a guy that doesn't garden or farm. Produce isn't ever free. It takes an infrastructure of manure, land, water, labor and sanitation to exist at all. And nobody that gardens comes away without blisters. As a kid it may have seemed pretty ubiquitous, I'll imagine. The memories of youth are not to be trusted though.

batista 15y ago
For the 18 guys living in the mountains, I guess water might have been less of a problem - other than hauling and storing. For the rest of the world, more of a problem. 18 guys? I think you vastly underestimate the mountain area population. Not everybody lives in Kansas/Nebraska. In America, all rivers and streams are not safe to drink without sterilizing. Even in the mountains. That's TODAY. Not when people USED to get its water for free. And I seriously doubt "all rivers and streams" in the US "are not safe to drink without sterilizing". Sounds more like over-protection to me... Any folks here near safe rivers/springs to chip in? "Like free"? Sounds like a guy that doesn't garden or farm. I'm actually from a rural area and we used to have potatoes, tomatoes, olives, cucumbers, oranges and grapes wine, IN HOUSE. And we weren't even farmers, just something almost everybody around those parts with some available land did. Potatoes for example were just in a patch of land 600 sq feet wide, but we didn't have to buy any. As for olives trees, we had (have) around 50 of those -- the most exhausting thing was beating on them or scraping them to have the olives fall down on special plastic nets, and that took like a week at most. Produce isn't ever free. It takes an infrastructure of manure, land, water, labor and sanitation to exist at all. And nobody that gardens comes away without blisters. The free part comes from the fact that people were doing those things ANYWAY. That was part of their everyday life -- and for those that weren't, it was dead easy to get some, even without buying (there would always be some relative, friend etc to give them some produce).
- crymer11 15y ago
  I'm from in east Tennessee (in the mountains), and water supply for the neighborhood I grew up in is fed by a natural spring. I worked for the water utility in high school and quite often drank the water from the spring before it was treated. The treatment process was basically adding chlorine to meet government regulations. I've also consumed quite a bit of water from rivers and creeks I've been kayaking on and haven't had an issue yet. * Don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming all water is safe to drink; when I go backpacking, I take a filtration system with me. But I also don't want to get stuck somewhere with digestive tract issues.