Earlier quoted context omitted.
China used night soil as fertilizer historically; they don't anymore (when was the practice abandoned, I wonder? And is there any Chinese interest in terra preta?), but it got them into great habits. The same is true for at least Korea and Japan; I don't know as much about Southeast Asia. Only drinking hot drinks also helped China's health. Fernand Braudel, in The Structures of Everyday Life , discusses this in passi…
The hot water thing was nothing more than a method to kill bacteria AFAIK. In much of Europe the preferred way of doing that was to produce beer. Many East Asians to this day still believe that hot water is better for your health, even when filtered water is cheap and plentiful. If you ask for water at a restaurant it will inevitably be warm. I've had people express concern when drinking cold water during the winter,…
In much of Europe the preferred way of doing that was indeed to use alcohol, but in more than one form. Beer's usage, compared to other alcoholic beverages, was higher only in germanic and western slavic regions (like Czech). The french, the spanish, greeks, romanians, and maybe others in the Balkan Peninsula, preferred wine. Eastern slavic and northern Europe had their vodka-like beverages. Europe is not only Germany, mind you!