Beer Found to be as Healthy as Wine 517
Matt Clare writes "Researchers at the University of Western Ontario (Canada) recently found that beer has the same positive qualities that wine has previously been found to have. The media release quotes professor John Trevithick, 'We were very surprised one drink of beer or stout contributed an equal amount of antioxidant benefit as wine, especially since red wine contains about 20 times the amount of polyphenols as beer.' For more info on how beer helps police harmful free radicals in blood, The London Free Press also has an article."
A bit one-sided... (Score:5, Interesting)
But the key is moderation. The researchers found three beers would have the opposite effect.
The study was funded by beermakers Guinness and Labatt. But the university says the financial support had no influence on the outcome.
ok, I'm outta here! (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously though, I've always wanted to start drinking a glass of wine or beer with lunch at work. Think about it long term; it would be a health benefit. One beer isn't going to make anyone loopy, and you'd be at your desk or in the kitchen, so you wouldn't be going outside like smokers, plus you'd only do it once a day unlike smokers.
Hmmm...perhaps I should send this article to our HR department...
CB!@#$%^&*
I thought this has been known... (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, the point is when he was recovering, the doctor asked him about his life-style. My grandfather, a wine-drinker, answered a solid "NO" when asked if he drank beer. The doctor recommended that he change that and start drinking a beer per day.
The doctor was under belief a beer per day would keep the prostate cancer from returning, and it (among other things) seems to have worked. My grandfather celebrated his 80th a few years ago and is still going strong.
Re:I think I speak for all of us ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Homer says it best (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I thought this has been known... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Please define it (Score:1, Interesting)
Actually, there are plenty of beers better than guinness.
Corporate Stouts in Ireland include Murphys, Beamish - they're arguably not better or worse than guinness, just different and not widely available outside Ireland + the UK.
In a microbrewery pub in Dublin, they sell stout brewed with oysters (yes, shellfish in your beer!). It kicks guinness' arse around the block.
acetaldehyde (Score:2, Interesting)
Acetaldehyde does a nice job preventing non-enzymatic protein cross-linking. Read for yourself: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/96/5/2385
Re:Proof of God? Franklin thought so. (Score:3, Interesting)
Most beers have high carb content (Score:4, Interesting)
In the process of trying to lose weight, I've done a lot of reading lately on why low-carb diets work, and most of thee details seem pretty logical and convincing to me. Here in a nutshell, is why I think high-carb beers cannot be healthier than (usually) low-carb wines for people trying to lose weight:
High carb and sugar diets cause the release of Insulin in the body, which is a signal to the body that more than adequate nutrition is available as a result of which, the survival mechanism kicks in and stores any fat consumed thereafter as body fat, with the carbs being used for energy. When carb consumption is lowered, however, Insulin is absent from the bloodstream, and fat is burnt instead for energy.
Hence, from this standpoint, the food pyramid (which suggests low fat instead of low carbs) as well as high carb beers are unhealthier, since they encourage storage of more fat in the body, leading to obesity.
In any case, I'm not a biologist, and I've found this way of eating quite health and effective. Thought I'd chip in with my $0.02.
For those interested in more details, look up Slashdot's earlier coverage of the subject:Hackera on Atkins" [slashdot.org].
Re:Beer vs. "low carb" nuts (Score:3, Interesting)
I think the "South Beach" author has some sort of agenda that has nothing to do with dieting, period.
My take on it is that, while flying the banner of health and weight loss, a lot of these books and diets are nothing more than thinly veiled attempts at promoting prohibition and, for want of a better term, puritanism. Lord knows most of the diets themselves are certainly not healthy (Atkins).
</tinfoil hat>
Expect the Price of Beer to Rise (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Interesting.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Interesting.... (Score:3, Interesting)
which act as lipase inhibitors, slowing the absorption of fat.
Re:you are drinking the wrong beer!!! (Score:1, Interesting)
8% alcohol in a 17 fl OZ for a $1.50 a bottle.
And the last thing you neeed to worry about
is weight gain when you are drinking alcohol,
think about your health first man!!!!
Can you do the same amount of physical activity
after a good nights drinking the next day ???
Thats the alcohol fucking up your whole system
that should be your main concern
Get the facts straight first , alcohol is far
worse for you that tobaco or pot/weed or even
some other harder drugs i wont mention.
And i have done quite a fiew of those drugs to
have a good judgemet(not good spelling since
english isn't my first language) about the effects
of each of them on my health and well being
I consider alcohol to be one of the worsed ones
out there. By the way ever think that most of
the hair loss is atributed to drinking ???????
try downing a six pack and see how fast your
hair brush fills up the next fiew days !!!!!!!
peace
dan
Well, since it's not the alcohol (Score:3, Interesting)
Ideally, you'd use yeast to make a vitamin drink, removing excess sugars/calories. You'd remove the alcohol. Then you'd drink.
Free Beer! (Score:5, Interesting)
[Hey, it's shameless self-promotion, but beer related stories don't appear on Slashdot that often]
You don't even need to know how to brew, because it comes with a brewing primer. To be honest, while the software is free as in pretzels, brewing ingredients might set you back twenty bucks for a two case batch, but that twenty buck is worth it. Now go and make some "Beer Found to be as Healthy as Wine".
[Now I'm starting to feel ashamed about this shameless self-promotion, better wrap up quick]
It's even free for Windows and Mac (but is much cooler under a Free and Open system like Linux or BSD). A new release is due within the month, but why wait? Build now and avoid the rush...
Re:Interesting.... (Score:3, Interesting)
"I think the people who buy $8 beer are likely to just drink a glass with dinner, as a replacement for wine. I believe a good beer can be just as good an accompaniment as wine. Just depends on the food, or your mood."
This is true. In fact, in Belgium [visitbelgium.com] they do use beer in place of wine. Belgium is a small country, yet it has 130 breweries and over 400 types of beer.
mmmmmm, beer
Re:Interesting.... (OT) (Score:5, Interesting)
White wines generally has fewer calories than red wines, but also has less antioxidant content than reds as well. The exception to the calorie count will be dessert wines, which have so much sugar in them it's pointless compare them to reds anyway. Also, not to put a damper toward white wine drinkers, but almost all 'light' whites are on the bottom of the list. These include Sauvignon Blanc and Rieslings (from almost any region, but veering towards colder regions like Alsace and Germany). Of the whites, the only wines that seem to rank well in antioxidant count(among other whites - none rank well against reds) are alcoholic, tannic chardonnays(from wood barrels) from very sunny regions, like Chile and Australia. I guess the sugar content helps there in the fermentation process.
Red wines with more tannins were generally ranked higher on the antioxidant list. I haven't really checked whether the tannin count is from the barrels they aged in, or the grape skin itself, but the highest ranking 'healthy' red wines listed were from chile and some parts of australia. But there were plenty from france and California as well.
Of the reds, small sized grape varietals seems to have more 'good stuff' in them; Most of the wines up on the list were Cabernet Sauvignon, some Cabernet Franc, and the occasional Shiraz/Syrah. Absent from the list (or I just don't remember seeing any) was primitivo/zinfandel, along with pinot noir. Most of the merlots were on the bottom of the list.
In terms of alcohol content, the 'healthiest' wines had the highest amount of alcohol in them, generally all above 14-15 percent. I'm guessing this is due to the length of time the wines are allowed to stay in the barrels(forgive my lack of winespeak, it's been a while). Also, very very few steel barrel wines ranked high in terms of antioxidant content and 'other stuff.'
I guess that's about it atm. If you want to drink healthy, make sure to aim for heavy, tannic wines made from the small grape varietals that have been aged in wood, which happens to have lots of calories, and lots of alcohol(disclaimer:there is no scientific basis on anything I've just said, this is all based off of my experience). :-) I haven't RTFA as of yet, but I'm curious of the types of beer high up on the list of 'goodness' reflect the wine criteria for 'goodness.' In particular the 'aged, high calorie, alcoholic' portion of it.
One thing about heavy tannic wines: in my experience I've gotten the worst hangovers from them. I'm guessing it's from the tannins themselves, as light reds and whites don't affect me nearly as much.
and not to be a downer on your post, but if I was looking to get a quick hit, my suggestion would be to aim straight for the vodka (not that I'm advocating that or anything). Vodka has some of the highest alcohol/dollar ratio making it super cheap, plus (if you buy good vodka) is has very little impurities so you don't have to worry too much about hangovers. And, it's pretty low on the calorie count compared to wine and beer. The problem with vodka is that because it's so clean, people have a hard time judging whether or not they have had enough.
I used to drink wine very heavily, so I've built quite a tolerance to alchohol. I don't drink as often as I used to, but every once in a while I enjoy having a beer or a glass of wine, and I notice that I get a nice little buzz, even with my heavy tolerance. Man, work must be more stressful than I thought. :-P
Re:Interesting.... (Score:1, Interesting)
Bull packets. Wine drinkers will split a 750ml bottle between two people and recall in the morning that each had "a glass of wine". Beer drinkers will have a couple of rousing pints apiece and remember just that.
Aside from the nuances of memory, the difference is that wine drinkers use metric units while beer drinkers use Imperial measure.
(And a pox on those miserly American pints. I'd rather drink a French liter than a Merkin pint.)
Re:Most beers have high carb content (Score:4, Interesting)
While this may be strictly true, the body's "store as fat" mechanism only happens if your body isn't burning all the Calories it ingests. This is a result of having a low metabolic rate. A low metabolic rate is caused by lack of exercise, surprise.
This is why starving yourself will also lead to losing weight, and why the minute you stop doing it, you'll gain it all back (as is the case with low carb diets, and any diet in fact, which is not accompanied by exercise.) Your body goes into survival "I'm starving quick store everything I eat who knows when I'll eat again" mode.
Americans (and I say this as an American) are hopelessly overweight, and we have a very weight conscious society. As a result, we spend a tremendous amount of time trying to lose weight. But very few people (especially fat people, sadly) want to do the actual work required to lose it. This is why stuff like the Atkins diet, anorexic self-starvation, and diet pills are so popular. People don't want to actually get off their butts and work out. They want to continue leading their sedentary lifestyles and lose weight.
When you think about it, it really isn't surprising. Americans work harder (longer hours, etc) than essentially anyone else in the world, on average. It stands to reason, then, that we have very little free time, and many of us have office jobs where we sit around all day. So those of us who don't much like exercise to begin with are unlikely to use what little free time we have working out. It's a problem.
But recognize that any diet without exersise will, at best, give you temporary results, which will force you to diet basically forever.
The way you describe the Atkins diet is the same way that people suffering from anorexia describe the celery diet. Celery has negative Calories -- it requires more energy to break it down than you get from it, it being mostly cellulose. Anorexics discovered that they could just eat celery and lose weight extremely fast. They were essentially starving themselves (hello, negative Cals) but it didn't feel that way, because they always had a full stomach.
Low carb diets are the same. Eat only food which is more difficult to burn than fat, and your body will preferentially burn fat. But this is just as stupid as the celery diet, for exactly the same reasons.
If you want to lose weight, exercise. Play a sport. Do something. Get off your ass. And eat what you want.
Re:Interesting, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
People that drink a glass of red wine everyday tend to live a much more, dare I say it, bourgeois lifestyle than those that don't. That the rich are healthier and live longer shouldn't surprise anyone.
It was actually shown to be a lifestyle difference rather than something attributable to red wine. The design of the experiment was completely flawed (think about it: how do you test the long term effects of drinking a glass of red wine everyday? How do you control that? You can really only find a bunch of people that have been regular (moderate) red wine drinkers all their lives and look at their health, versus people that haven't. But while a positive correlation exists, how on earth can you establish causality? The experiment is completely uncontrolled.)
Re:Let's drink better beer. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Interesting.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I did point out he was eating candy that contained gelatine which was typically nonvegan. He just shrugged it off. Still it was in the UK so eating meat (esp beef) was probably risky - so he may have the last laugh yet (or I might be laughing mad with vCJD).
Actually the evidence is that humans are very well suited to eating sea fish. It'll be easier for humans on a diet of fish and vegetables to be healthier and stronger than those on pure vegetarian diets (harder to pick the correct vegetables etc). Assuming nontoxic/pollution tainted fish+vege of course (unfortunately pollution is bad nowadays).
Re:I think I speak for all of us ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Let's drink better beer. (Score:3, Interesting)
I got back to Baltimore and haven't been able to find Sprecher in this area yet, but they do ship around. See if you're lucky enough to have some. We have a great little bar in Baltimore (Brewer's Art) that specializes in Belgian beer, so I guess I can't complain too much.