Hello Everyone
There used to be a funny phrase from
the controversial English comedy TV show Monty
Python’s Flying Circus. It was I drink therefore I am! It was a send
up of Descartes’ famous I think therefore
I am.
It was in part a comment on the amount
of alcohol people drank and its impact on their lives. But drink and the types of beverages we
consume have played an exceptionally important role in the history of humanity.
Richard Glover points out that the
popularity of tea drinking in the 17th century was a crucial factor in
the expansion of the slave trade. Tea along with sugar to sweeten the drink
also required vast plantations which then led to the slave trade.
Coffee on the other hand is said to
have led to the enlightenment.
Evidently coffee houses took over from pubs as meeting places. The nature of conversations changed as people
were no longer intoxicated and rational thought took hold.
Just last week in New Zealand it was
reported that a woman died from overdosing on Coke – she drank up to ten litres
a day!
Is it time to consider the unintended
consequences of what we drink? Many of
us with pets would only give them water. We would be mortified to think of someone
giving them milky, sugary tea or a cappuccino or a gin and tonic or coke. Yet
this is what many of us do each day to our own bodies.
What would our mental, physical,
emotional and rational health be like if we only drank rain juice? The drink of
champions? Water? And what is it like for so many in the world
who do not have access to it?
Drink water! Live! Love!
Reference:
Richard Glover The Sydney Morning Herald 9 Feb 2013
