system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: People used to drink more alcohol because it was purportedly safer to drink than water due to fermentation processes. How was that drinking habit sans water sustainable without them getting dehydrated from drinking so much alcohol?
gpt
You have to drink alcohol in concentrations of higher than 30% (60 proof) for it to cause you to lose more water than you absorb from the drink. So drinking beers and wine which ranged from 2% to 10% were not enough to dehydrate you. And most of the beers that they drank during the day were called small beer which were around the 2% mark.