The good things about wine/beer, The bad things about water

[outlaw2001it]

To my friends who enjoy a glass of wine/beer… and those who don't. As Ben Franklin said: In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is freedom, in water there is bacteria. In a number of carefully controlled trials, scientists have demonstrated that if we drink 1 liter of water each day, at the end of the year we would have absorbed more than 1 kilo of Escherichia coli, (E. Coli) - bacteria found in feces. In other words, we are consuming 1 kilo of poop.
However, we do NOT run that risk when drinking wine & beer (or tequila, rum, Whiskey or other liquor) because alcohol has to go through a purification process of boiling, filtering and /or fermenting.

Remember: Water = Poop, Wine/beer = Health

Therefore, it's better to drink wine or beer and talk stupid, than to drink water and be full of s***.

[Atomic Rooster]

We drink filtered water, so your hypothesis is full of s***.

[super gerbil]

We drink filtered water, so your hypothesis is full of s***.

[osprey4]

In a number of carefully controlled trials, scientists have demonstrated that if we drink 1 liter of water each day, at the end of the year we would have absorbed more than 1 kilo of Escherichia coli, (E. Coli) - bacteria found in feces. In other words, we are consuming 1 kilo of poop

We're going to need a reference and calculations for that claim.

If I can find some time, I myself shall debunk it.

[osprey4]

This turns out to be completely bogus, just as you would guess.

A single E coli bacterium weighs about 1e-12 g. A positive result for E coli would be one cfu per mL. So out of one liter of "contaminated water" (positive for E coli), 1e-10 g would be E coli. You would have to drink 10 trillion liters of contaminated water to get one kg of E coli.

Actually, if you look at your local water report, there is a limit on positive samples (usually 5%). A recent report for our local water supply shows 0.97% positive for E coli. So I would have to drink 1000 trillion liters of water from our water supply to ingest 1 kilogram of E coli.

Looking at this another way around, if you drink 1 liter of water per day, you drink 365 liters, or ~365 kg of water. So are we supposed to believe that out of 365 kg, one kg of that is E coli?

I think not.

[outlaw2001it]

My sister sent me this via email, I think it was meant more of a joke than anything else. I didn't take it to seriously, actually I laughed at it. But if you want to debunk it...go ahead, have fun, enjoy. I have a 25 liter water cooler in my house (what offices have), so I don't drink anything from the tap either. Don't cook with the tap water either, I use bottle water.

[Theophylact]

I never drink water, fish f**k in it.
-- W. C. Fields

[M_Six]

You beat me to it again, Theo.