I meant it more as a figure of speech. Nobody is trying to shoehorn health into random poisons. BTW there are allowable amounts to many poisons. There aren't allowable amounts of things like lead and butane.
The question is why we're trying so hard to make something healthy. The answer is obvious, because we like it. You don't see doctors trying to come up with justifications for why we should drink arsenic or cyanide, just as long as it's tiny amounts.
Alcohol causes cancer, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, anxiety, and many nasty things. It may be one thing to tell people that their glass of wine a day is OKAY, but we shouldn't be telling them it's "healthy" without good reason. The better analogy is smoking, because the harms are more similar than people think.
I sort of figured, but then it wouldn't be much of an argument to claim that it can't be beneficial.
But fair enough, I misunderstood your argument. Your argument is actually that any claims of a fun "poison" being beneficial are highly suspect.
To that end - that would make sense for novel poisons or poisons that are rarely consumed. But this is one that's been consumed by many successful cultures for thousands of years. Animals get drunk on fermented fruit. That makes it seem more plausible to me that there could be something beneficial to it. Perhaps it was only beneficial in the days of unclean drinking water (unless that one is also not actually true! It's hard to believe anything anymore.).
The question is why we're trying so hard to make something healthy. The answer is obvious, because we like it. You don't see doctors trying to come up with justifications for why we should drink arsenic or cyanide, just as long as it's tiny amounts.
Alcohol causes cancer, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, anxiety, and many nasty things. It may be one thing to tell people that their glass of wine a day is OKAY, but we shouldn't be telling them it's "healthy" without good reason. The better analogy is smoking, because the harms are more similar than people think.