Furthermore trying to tie everything to caste related issues will cause more harm than good, as it is popular and easy to blame a simple demon the truth is often more nuanced.
How true that is, and I agonized over how to word the end of my comment to avoid overstating/ misstating / offending / hitting peoples' hot buttons (pro or con). However I think there's an essential truth somewhere in there, and I chose the word "fastidious" because it is more clear than incorrect (and emotionally laden) words like "better" / "cleaner" etc. In fact "fastidious" can even have some slightly negative implications.
But to be realistic: my Brahmin grandparents and great grandparents (born in 1800s!) & family all lived well into their 90s as long as they survived childhood. My anglo grandparents and great grandparents (also born in 1800s) were lucky to survive childhood and make it to their 50s, much less past that.
The note I was responding to claimed that Europeans had the germ theory and anyone who did something bad for their health was willfully ignorant and stupid.
> People understand just fine what "illness" is. Every culture has a long tradition of medical practice since long before anyone knew what a germ was, and people in many civilizations (this isn't some eurocentric western-world thing) have known for hundreds or thousands of years to keep feces away from their food and water.
The germ theory is relatively recent and was not readily accepted in Europe. And for that matter Europe was very late to adopt a theory of keeping faeces away from their food and water.
Traditional Brahmanism in India is extremely fastidious. Sadly by connecting the practices to caste they did not become widespread among others.
Your sense of obviousness is inconsistent with the investigations of history or sociology.