4 ms·

No one is saying water was always safe, you are making a straw man so you can do a both sides thing. People where obviously worried about water safety, yes. Fe

No one is saying water was always safe, you are making a straw man so you can do a both sides thing. People where obviously worried about water safety, yes. Fermented drinks are not guaranteed to be safe though. The 2% isn't going to do much. The brewing process helps a bit but you you can just boil water after all. The question is not whether water safety was a concern, it certainly was but whether people brew beer MAINLY for safety reasons. I think it is safe(!) to assume they brew beer because they liked drinking bear.

mellinoe 3y ago
> The brewing process helps a bit but you you can just boil water after all. Was this widely known?
- lupusreal 3y ago
  No, not before Louis Pasteur. It's likely that people knew brewed beverages were safer but didn't know why, and didn't know they could skip most of the brewing process and simply boil the water.
- cardanome 3y ago
  They didn't knew about bacteria and wouldn't have had the theory to explain why it would help. Boiling water wasn't really that necessary because the medieval period was sparsely populated and people had access to safe water sources. I am sure they would have figured out boiling water if their survival dependent on it. We know that People generally knew about basic hygiene and applied it even if they lacked modern theory.
  - dragontamer 3y ago
    > They didn't knew about bacteria and wouldn't have had the theory to explain why it would help. That didn't stop say, the sterilization effects of silver from being widely known and spread across myths. Fewer people got sick when they drank from silver cups and silver stuff. They didn't know a thing about bacteria, but enough people drinking from enough different cups and suddenly a pattern emerges that forms the basis of a myth or legend. > We know that People generally knew about basic hygiene and applied it even if they lacked modern theory. Soap and its effects to destroy common pathogens (viruses and bacteria) wasn't known... but "Hygiene" became a thing as early as 400BC Roman periods because of similar patterns. The theories we have today summarize centuries or millennia of collective experience. Not the other way around. We don't need to understand bacteria to discover how useful soap, boiling, or silver/anti-bacterial surfaces are. Instead, we use our knowledge of "silver prevents sickness", "soap prevents sickness", and "boiling prevents sickness" to help us discover a grand theory of microorganisms / bacteria.
- qwytw 3y ago
  Hippocrates did suggest this approach of purifying water so at least educated doctors would've have certainly known that. Also it's not exactly rocket science most people would have probably understood that to some extent. At least that boiling removes "bad" smells and improves the taste (that's what Hippocrates said at least, not how effective that is).
giraffe_lady 3y ago
Since you can read my mind I don't think I have anything else to contribute here.
dimask 3y ago
> The 2% isn't going to do much. 2% of what? If you mean alcohol, that is not how fermentation works for preserving food/drinks. Using beneficial/harmless cultures to outcompete harmful microorganisms, which is how fermentation is used to preserve food/drinks, has been the main way of preserving food across cultures. Especially before fridge, canning and and other modern industrial techniques have been possible. Yeah I do not get the "beer instead of water" thing, but I can imagine there could be a lot of situations that beer could be important to have as a water source, like traveling distances.

mellinoe 3y ago

> The brewing process helps a bit but you you can just boil water after all. Was this widely known?

lupusreal 3y ago
No, not before Louis Pasteur. It's likely that people knew brewed beverages were safer but didn't know why, and didn't know they could skip most of the brewing process and simply boil the water.
cardanome 3y ago
They didn't knew about bacteria and wouldn't have had the theory to explain why it would help. Boiling water wasn't really that necessary because the medieval period was sparsely populated and people had access to safe water sources. I am sure they would have figured out boiling water if their survival dependent on it. We know that People generally knew about basic hygiene and applied it even if they lacked modern theory.
- dragontamer 3y ago
  > They didn't knew about bacteria and wouldn't have had the theory to explain why it would help. That didn't stop say, the sterilization effects of silver from being widely known and spread across myths. Fewer people got sick when they drank from silver cups and silver stuff. They didn't know a thing about bacteria, but enough people drinking from enough different cups and suddenly a pattern emerges that forms the basis of a myth or legend. > We know that People generally knew about basic hygiene and applied it even if they lacked modern theory. Soap and its effects to destroy common pathogens (viruses and bacteria) wasn't known... but "Hygiene" became a thing as early as 400BC Roman periods because of similar patterns. The theories we have today summarize centuries or millennia of collective experience. Not the other way around. We don't need to understand bacteria to discover how useful soap, boiling, or silver/anti-bacterial surfaces are. Instead, we use our knowledge of "silver prevents sickness", "soap prevents sickness", and "boiling prevents sickness" to help us discover a grand theory of microorganisms / bacteria.
qwytw 3y ago
Hippocrates did suggest this approach of purifying water so at least educated doctors would've have certainly known that. Also it's not exactly rocket science most people would have probably understood that to some extent. At least that boiling removes "bad" smells and improves the taste (that's what Hippocrates said at least, not how effective that is).

giraffe_lady 3y ago

Since you can read my mind I don't think I have anything else to contribute here.

dimask 3y ago

> The 2% isn't going to do much. 2% of what? If you mean alcohol, that is not how fermentation works for preserving food/drinks. Using beneficial/harmless cultures to outcompete harmful microorganisms, which is how fermentation is used to preserve food/drinks, has been the main way of preserving food across cultures. Especially before fridge, canning and and other modern industrial techniques have been possible. Yeah I do not get the "beer instead of water" thing, but I can imagine there could be a lot of situations that beer could be important to have as a water source, like traveling distances.