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The domestication of wild grains has played a major role in human evolution, facilitating the transition from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to one based on agriculture. You might think that the grains were used for bread, which today represents a basic staple. But some scientists argue that it wasn't bread that motivated our ancestors to start grain farming. It was beer. Man, they say, chose pints over pastry.
Beer has plenty to recommend it over bread. First, and most obviously, it is pleasant to drink. "Beer had all the same nutrients as bread, and it had one additional advantage," argues Solomon H. Katz, an anthropology professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Namely, it gave early humans the same pleasant buzz it gives us. Patrick E. McGovern, the director of the Biomolecular Archaeology Project for Cuisine, Fermented Beverages, and Health at the University of Pennsylvania, goes even further. Beer, he says, was more nutritious than bread. It contains "more B vitamins and [more of the] essential amino acid lysine," McGovern writes in his book, Uncorking the Past: the Quest for Wine, Beer, and Other Alcoholic Beverages. It was also safer to drink than water, because the fermentation process killed pathogenic microorganisms. "With a four to five percent alcohol content, beer is a potent mind-altering and medicinal substance," McGovern says, adding that ancient brewers acted as medicine men.
We hold these things to be self-evident: The Internet is for Pr0n, and Civilization is for Beer.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Tuesday December 01 2015, @09:30PM
Noo.. those would be samples of 'countries'.
Unless, you take the beautiful cover drawing of Hobbes' Leviathan [wikipedia.org] literally.. ;-)
Are there any countries where the inhabitants don't drink beer? I don't mean: where the inhabitants are not supposed to drink beer.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Wednesday December 02 2015, @01:32PM
All the countries where beer was not invented are places where they didn't drink beer. And the timeline which is being discussed here, we can use "don't" instead of "didn't".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2015, @02:55PM
I doubt there existed countries back then.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Wednesday December 02 2015, @04:29PM
No, but there existed conclaves of humanity, and unless you want to claim that global communication existed before 'domestication' of men...
There is no way you can turn this around into a fact. Beer has got nothing to do with agriculture.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2015, @05:30PM
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Wednesday December 02 2015, @06:56PM
How is there interest so important? Now instead of looking at science we are looking scientists. When you stop scrutinizing you stop doing science,
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Wednesday December 02 2015, @04:59PM
Sorry that I was pedantic. Maybe they invented other stuff to ferment. I read the ancient Egyptians invented beer (as medicine) but they hadn't put the preservative hops in it yet. In fact, until the Czechs discovered pils [wikipedia.org], I believe the europeans used "alehoof" [wikipedia.org] to keep their beer antiseptic longer. That tastes completely different, maybe you wouldn't call it beer.
It seems too obvious to not be invented in different places, if you know what I mean. Lots of people would carefully taste food to see if it's spoilt, and would have surely remembered if it tasted *better* than they expected. Do you know if the African beer is descended from European brewing traditions or an independent invention?
I once bought an organic bread that had continued to ferment inside (too wet); it was highly alcoholic, I think the baker re-invented Russian kvass [wikipedia.org]! Tasted horrible BTW.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Wednesday December 02 2015, @07:02PM
No you should be pedantic, as so was I. People drink rotten milk of palm, but that is not beer and palm grows in sandy areas but people still try to grow something [wikipedia.org] there. Some people mix milk with cannabis but they don't drink beer. By the way, I am talking of ancient civilizations.