[C19fan]

Before the infrastructure for clean water was develop cultures either drank alcohol or some boiled water product, for example tea or coffee. Europeans went heavily to the alcohol developing a high tolerance for alcohol. Asian went the tea route and can't tolerate alcohol as well. My father is from East Asia and I can't handle alcohol well.

[dsrtsage]

You ever wonder why most cultures that did not historically have alcohol never progressed beyond the stone age?

[RedStateRocker]

Well, it wouldn’t surprise me if the extreme end of the curve regarding a proclivity to consume excess slowly weeded itself out. Maybe not fast enough for my tastes but we’ve only been consuming alcohol for 10 thousand years or so- maybe at most twice that- short time in terms of natural selection.

[ameribbean expat]

Okay, so what are the Irish supposed to do for an encore?

[ameribbean expat]

The Japanese I’ve done business with seem to thrive on booze fueled nights out. No idea about the Chinese.

[Caipirabob]

Well, so all that drinking in college WAS for a good cause!

[LadyDoc]

there is a genetic problem in Asians that they can’t tolerate alcohol: my husband, a Filipino, couldn’t drink either.

We also see it in some AmerIndians.

In the past, alcohol saved lives because it killed germs (weak beer, wine mixed with water). So if you couldn’t drink alcohol, you had a bigger risk to die of diarrhea etc.

now the risk of dying from alcohol related accidents is a bigger risk than dying from dirty water related diseases.

And yes tea drinking was found to cut the water related diseases in Japan etc. I heard a lecture on this somewhere but don’t have the link.

if you travel overseas in rural areas and aren’t sure of the water supply, drink wine beer, well boiled coffee or tea, or coca cola. I’ve seen coca cola etc. sold in isolated villages all over the world. The PC activists hit the ceiling, but hey, it’s safet than water.