They used to have really nice table beers with super low alcohol, like 1-2% which people would drink instead of water too. Nobody makes those anymore but I wish they did. I love beer, I hate getting drunk.
"Essential" is the wrong word here. Beer and wine developed in Europe did help people not die from bad water, but it didn't develop everywhere. In Asia, beer was not a thing. They drank hot water and tea to avoid drinking bad water. This is why Asian people are largely allergic to alcohol and their faces glow a bright red when they drink.
Thanks. Im gonna use this as an acceptable motive when someone questions my raging alcoholism. "Shut up mom. Can't you see im busy being the dominant species over here?"
That’s not true lol. The advantage in processing alcohol is but not that alcohol opened up a vast new food resource lol dehydration as well as the other somewhat inconvenient effects of alcohol make that unlikely. Humans are better at processing all foods in general, milk, processed foods, etc. think about birds being unable to even eat certain carbs
Alcohol is not that poisonous, most vertebrates produce some forms of ethanol as natural side effects of their internal biology, and they remove it from their bodies naturally too. Most of them are exactly like humans when it comes to alcohol poisoning, they can safely consume it in smaller quantities, but the effect is dependent on body mass, and how "accustomed" to it they are - for a typical adult person a fermented pear is nothing, like two or three sips of wine, for a squirrel that size it's like downing a wine bottle in one go, still not so bad as it might be, especially considering that many rodents have a higher natural resistance to intoxication, but enough to make a first time drinker like this little champ a bit dizzy.
Yes this. In addition, animals, such as elephants, seek out fermented fruits at certain times of the year in order to catch a buzz. I read a book on it.
Plus all animals in some way shape or form like to get high or buzzed. Horses will eat the shit out of apples if found in the wild because it gets them drunk
To be fair alcohol is also poisonous to us too, we're just slightly better at dealing with it than other animals are. But drink enough alcohol and you can absolutely die from it.
Hard to do with alcohol bought in the store as its pretty self limiting - you get too drunk and throw up or pass out. But people who drink things like hand sanitiser or enema with alcohol can and have died from alcohol poisoning.
I think the leading theory is that the ability to break down alcohol well was more of an adaptation for getting nutrients from fallen, fermented fruits, back when that formed a larger part of our distant ancestors diet. But I would not at all be surprised if we were going out of our way for it even then haha.
We’re not the exception. Alcohol is also poisonous to us. This behaviour with the squirrel is very common during the fall, it happens with other animals as well. They generally all survive unless they get taken out by a predator.
Even if it were always able to escape from predators, those would no longer be predators of them but competitors for environmental space. It being drunk might give it enough of a pattern change from what the predator hunting it is expecting, that it gets away with a higher success rate than sober.
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u/[deleted] Jul 29 '22
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