Primal Primer 7 (Nutrition)
The fermentation of fruit and grains to create alcoholic beverages has been a practice occurring for at least 10,000 years. Entering the Neolithic period, agriculture practices developed, and so did intentional fermentation for the purpose of preservation and alcohol. Evidence of the first alcoholic beverage dates back to ~7,000 years ago in China; a drink composed of fermented rice, honey, and fruit. ~4,000 years ago in Mesopotamia, beer was born and was a dietary staple, even becoming a form of currency. In Medieval Europe, monastic communities played role in brewing beer and making wine; refining the brewing techniques as ritual enhancing and solution for unsafe water as waterborne disease was a common hazard in this epoch.
Fermentation Technology
Fermentation is a technology used to preserve and transform food and beverage; enabling higher nutrient content, stabilizing against decay, delivering probiotics, and flavor enhancement. Although alcohol is one of the lesser nutritious products of this process, the history with Homo sapiens is a complex narrative driving culture, religion, and role as social lubricant and potential source of harm.
Alcohol Duality: Poison Or Purpose
Fire can cook your food or burn your house down. The duality of danger with alcohol is similar, with the devil being in quantity. Although once a technology for staving off decay and providing a safe alternative to questionable water, alcohol nutrition can also turn into poison depending on dose. When sharing in communal settings alcohol can be uniting and possibly barrier breaking. Let this substance unite those willing, but be wary of its addictive grips, poisonous environments, and habits that are connected.
~Cave Implementation~
Consume alcohol if compelled, but do so intentionally and with purpose (as with any drug). Take inventory of your alcohol consumption. Know reasons for consumption and assess if you are better because of fermented and distilled beverages. If hangovers (objective indicators of this poison) are common, goals are not being reached, relationships struggle, recovery is substandard, or body composition is not to standard, own these facts and establish boundaries that guide responsible and irresponsible consumption. Abstinence is a great protocol to enact for correcting lagging attributes.
Consume Alcohol If Compelled: Establish Boundaries That Guide Responsible & Irresponsible Consumption.
