[Texas Eagle]

After all, alcohol itself contains roughly zero health benefits,

B.S. If it wasn't for beer, The Pilgrims would never have survived.

[Hot Tabasco]

B.S. If it wasn't for beer,

There would be a lot of fat ugly chicks in a bar going home alone.......

[dfwgator]

Beer is liquid bread.

[rlmorel]

I have read that the per capita consumption of alcohol in colonial America was astonishingly high due to the lack of clean water to drink...don't know if it is true, but I can buy it.

I had to go look for it and couldn't find it, but I found this one:

The Spirits of Our Forefathers"

They said every man, woman, and child drank 8 ounces of alcohol a day, which comes out to over 22 gallons of ethyl alcohol a year! Today, per capita consumption in the USA of ethyl alcohol averages about 2 gallons per capita.

Caveat-I assume they are taking gallons of 200 proof alcohol, not the volume of liquor, beer, or wine. Hell, many people go through gallons of beer every few days, and in some cases in a single day! So I made an assumption.

[steve86]

From article: “After all, alcohol itself contains roughly zero health benefits”

Benefits clearly are non-linear with respect to consumption. The single glass of wine or equivalent amount of alcohol may be beneficial; benefit decreases with increasing dose, probably at a negative exponential rate.