🥴 Chimpanzees' Fruit Diet Reveals Evolutionary Roots of Alcohol Consumption

A new study reveals that wild chimpanzees regularly consume naturally occurring ethanol by eating ripe tropical fruits in Africa. Researchers found that the fruit pulp making up the bulk of chimpanzee diets contains about 0.3% ethanol by weight, with each animal ingesting the equivalent of around 14 grams of ethanol per day—roughly matching 1.4 standard alcoholic drinks by international standards.

The findings add scientific support to the idea that human attraction to alcohol may trace back to evolutionary roots. Scientists note that regular ethanol intake through fruit was likely everyday for ancestral primates, suggesting our affinity for alcohol could be a biological legacy rather than a cultural accident.

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