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| The "drunk monkey" hypothesis suggests humans evolved from primates that ate fermented fruit. |
A recent article in The Economist features this headline: “How humankind’s 10m-year love affair with booze might end.”
“Alcohol is poison” has become a popular catchphrase. As The Economist points out, “Ethanol is so toxic that most animals that consume it either quickly get drunk or poison themselves. Humans, unusually, have a pair of enzymes that turf it out like night-club bouncers. Our ability to process alcohol has deep evolutionary roots.”
It continues: “Ten million years ago a common ancestor of humans, chimpanzees and gorillas acquired a mutation that let them remove ethanol from the body more efficiently. This adaptation coincided with a change of habitat. Tropical forests were collapsing… Some 90% of apes went extinct. One lineage survived by leaving the trees and foraging on the ground.
“Whereas apes in trees gobbled fresh fruit, those on the ground found fallen fruit, which ferments. Thus, our ancestors may have acquired a taste for alcohol–which allowed them to use these scarce calories.”
You pretty much know the rest.
Evidence in the form of yeast residue in pottery jugs suggests intentionally fermented beverages existed at least ten thousand years ago, near the end of the Stone Age.
The ability to make beverage alcohol made civilization possible because it was healthier to drink than water. Humans in large numbers, then as now, tend to pollute local water supplies with their waste. Even a small concentration of alcohol can kill most of the nasty bugs that sicken people, allowing populations to grow.
Another way alcohol made civilization possible was by helping people get along. Perhaps there is more fighting today because there is less drinking.
After 1492, Spain’s New World colonies in Central and South America exported gold, silver, and sugar. The equivalent in the north for the British, French, and Dutch was fur, mostly beaver. Most trapping was done by indigenous people. What did European traders give Indians for those pelts? We’re always told “trade goods,” but mostly it was alcohol, primarily rum made from the residue of Caribbean sugar production.
The trade preferred alcohol not because they wanted to drink it, though some did, but because it was easy to trade. In a barter economy, alcohol is the nearest thing to currency. It’s portable as well as potable. It’s easy to divide and always in demand.
So, yes, alcohol--ethanol--is poison. But it is poison with benefits. Its ability to kill harmful microbes we didn’t even know existed was just one of its boons. Like ephedra and other Stone Age drugs, it alters consciousness in ways that may have prompted the first religions.
When European-Americans spilled over the Appalachians into the American interior, they established communities based on a nexus of cereal farmers, millers, and distillers. Alcohol taxes fueled government at every level. Until income tax, alcohol taxes were the principal source of funding for national defense.
All the way up to Prohibition, the profitability of alcohol businesses, both producers and merchants, allowed many to function informally as community banks. Many distillers were also millers and livestock feeders, so they sold more to the community than booze. Henry McKenna, a distiller in Fairfield, Kentucky, gave his suppliers and customers the equivalent of a free checking account, even floating small interest-free loans. It was good for his business but good for the community too.
You weren't taught any of this in school. Our inability as a society to be honest about alcohol may be part of the problem. Everything children are taught about alcohol is contradicted by their own experiences.
In part because it is so ubiquitous, alcohol is implicated in many social problems. We blame alcohol for traffic accidents and domestic violence, but don't give it credit for facilitating successful business deals or courtships.
Today, the press is full of stories about young people turning away from alcohol, for health reasons or because they prefer other intoxicants. Weight loss drugs seem to suppress the appetite for alcohol too. Beer, wine, and spirits have all seen sales decline. The threat of trade wars is disrupting the international market. All of the arrows seem to be pointing down, but if young Americans, or any people anywhere, permanently and voluntarily stop consuming alcohol in large numbers it will be a phenomenon unprecedented in human history.
I wouldn’t bet on it.
Last week, Bobby Kennedy's Department of Health and Human Services released its new dietary guidelines. For a long time, the government's guidelines recommended "moderate" alcohol consumption, which it defined as no more than two drinks per day for men and one for women. A "drink" is defined as a beverage containing 0.6 fluid ounces or 14 grams of pure alcohol. That's one beer, one glass of wine, one cocktail, or about 1.5 ounces of 80° proof whiskey.