Let’s pretend it was true: no one during previous
centuries drank water because it was polluted;
if they did, they’d get sick and/or die, and so
everyone drank beer instead.
Okay. Well…what about the animals? If all water
was polluted and unsafe, what did the livestock
drink? What about domestics such as chickens,
goats, sheep, hogs, cattle, horses, etc.? How
about the wild animals? The deer, rabbits, and
such? If any of those critters did drink the water,
what about the humans who then ate their meat?
Or ate what they produced? The eggs and the milk?
Or the use of body parts, say intestines for sausage
or bladders for puddings? What about the fish that
lived in that polluted water? We’re all aware nowadays
of the affects polluted ponds, streams, rivers, and
lakes have on fish. Surely, bad water made for bad
fish in the past, as well. Yet, literally for centuries,
assorted fish were consumed weekly, even daily.
In fact, it was mandated by the Holy Roman Church
at one time or another!
Of course, there’s also the inevitable: If the animals
didn’t drink the water either, were they given beer
instead, too? (Insert jokes here about the drunken
oxen pulling the plow in a zig-zag pattern across
a field or the drunken man riding the drunken horse!)
Guess that generalization about not drinking water seems
pretty silly now, doesn’t it?
Go ahead, drink up!
