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Don't forget that wahtever is swaying, HAS TO BE something that we can achieve without anything invented in the past year, decade, century, or millenia! Most of human history, we had no alcohol, so it cannot be the case that we have to have that to get a girl.Quote:
Originally Posted by has2gentlemen
I read a book about this and they weren't very alcoholic. Even babies and little kids drank wine and beer because just like you say it was safer than drinking water. I agree I'm curious about the history as well, but I think the fertility factor confounds it all, because the ladies in the lowest condition (and there were probably quite a few) would have quit having babies all together, some women who would have had boys in the modern world would have had girls, and the people in the best of the best condition may have been able to better "shake off" some of the worse things like drinking daily because they were so well fed. That complicates everythign!! :?Quote:
Originally Posted by maidentomother
Kay, I hate feeling drunk too. The worst is how dehydrated I feel/am on alcohol. Also it only affects me physically, not mentally. So I seem out of it but am not....was very annoying at college parties with frat boys trying to take advantage etc.
Atomic, thanks so much for your thoughts. I suspected the % was pretty darn low since everyone drank it. So probably it was metabolized too quickly to have much noticeable effect? But I still wonder about hidden effects. Maybe everyone just had high tolerances? I would think the alcohol couldn't be that weak or it wouldn't be safe to drink. Surely someone has studied the exact amount needed to make water safe...
Sometimes I wonder if the middle ages went on for so long bc so many people were retarded by their mothers drinking while pregnant. I wonder about mothers drinking stronger alcohol more recently too, as the scientific effects of maternal alcohol consumption haven't been known long.
When you're making alcohol the old fashioned way it happens is that for during a time it is highly alcoholic and then it peters out over time (which is why wine turns into vinegar and beer turns into malt vinegar and hard cider turns into apple cider vinegar eventually and can no longer get ya drunk any more.) So they didn't drink it at its most alcoholic point, but the germs were already dead by then, thus safe to drink even when not super duper intoxicating. It was actually a pretty major breakthrough to distill spirits whereupon everyone went from only mildly intoxicated to sh--tfaced constantly LOL. Luckily soon after that, they started to import tea and coffee and were able to recover from hangovers more quickly and the Enlightenment happened. :)
"History of the World in 6 Glasses" well worth a read!
Oh yum, super acidic weak booze. Blech! Great post atomic, I'll check out the book. Always been fascinated by how psychoactive drugs affect history!
Haha I know delish, right???
I didn't drink at all with my first 4 kids (3 boys and 1 girl) and with my last 2 (boy and girl) I was drink quite often. Definitely at ovulation with both. Rum with my boy and vodka with my girl.
And my husband has always been a drinker. He pretty much has beer daily and will go on kicks where he drinks liquor and diet soda instead. I definitely think he was drinking the heaviest with both girls.
Oh my gosh, had I known this was a sway... I wasn't drunk when we conceived, but had definitely been a steady drinker (on avg. 1-6 drinks a week, almost always craft beer, sometimes red wine or a mixed drink like a margarita); craft beer is what I consider a hobby, even, and my husband definitely drinks frequently (not drunk, again, but a small serving of scotch pretty often, steady craft beer drinking, etc.). I drank up until my BFP, too.
Can't emphasize enough that craft beer is very specifically the alcohol I was trying to "get in as much as possible" before getting pregnant... now I'm sad thinking I'm going to have to go without after my baby girl is born to try and get a boy!!
That's not entirely true! Low ABV beer has been such a facet of human history, some historical texts credit it (specifically early beer, which was probably only clocking around 1-2%) as the reason for civilization! Evidence of beer in culture has been found as far back as 10,000 years ago!Quote:
Originally Posted by atomic sagebrush
(Oops, just saw your follow up post!)