Red, Red Wine Red, Red Wine
By Dawn Lowery
Recently I read an article by a guy named Charles Bamforth extolling the virtues of drinking beer and wine. First of all, the guy has the title of Department Chair of food science and technology at UC Davis. Impressive enough but then add the rest of his title "Anheuser-Busch Endowed Professor of Malting and Brewing Sciences." Talk about the guy to invite to the dorms on Friday night!!
His most recent book is "Grape vs. Grain." It is comparison of beer and wine, how they are each made and on page 163 he finally cuts to the chase...the healthfulness of beer and wine. That is what we are all looking for, justification of our comfort habits. Thank you Dr. Bamforth, you are a genius.
The bottom line is the alcohol itself is the heart-helping ingredient, not just the resveratrol from red wine, that lets us live longer. Great! This means my beer drinking buddies will live just as healthy as my wino friends AND the bonus is that "alcohol" is much easier to say than "resveratrol" when talking smart and impressing others while imbibing.
What about all of those studies that justified those daily glasses of red wine? They said wine drinkers were all healthier than beer drinkers, we thought we had a higher place in life. Come to find out that researchers in Denmark looked through 3.5 million supermarket receipts and found that wine buyers ate healthier (those numbers alone would drive me to ingest more wine in the name of research!) Wine drinkers ate more fruits, vegetables, olives (martinis), chicken, and low fat milk products than beer drinkers did on average. With no surprise-beer drinkers bought more chips, sodas, processed lunch meats and, for my Wisconsin connections, sausage. Other studies done showed wine drinkers were more inclined to eat less saturated fat, exercise more and smoke less if at all.
Moderate intake of alcohol has been shown to help prevent heart disease but there are other benefits as well. Sounding better when singing at high volumes or thinking it's ok to hug everyone while crying are not the benefits of which I am speaking. I am talking of health benefits.
The Italians found that moderate drinking lowered the risk for death for men and women around 17%-18%. This was for spirits as well as wine and beer. More than four drinks for men and two for women daily showed and increase in death rates. Several other studies have shown the risk of dementia was decreased as well as diabetes, kidney stones, gallstones, prostate cancer and the development of rheumatoid arthritis.
A drink or two a day will not kill us, it is good for us. That being said, a healthy diet and exercising daily also adds to the bonus of the heart healthy cocktail. Perspective is important here. I am more of a wino than a beer girl but I do have love for a cold Alaskan Amber and will not turn one down if offered. Some time soon I will let you know how beer is actually, supposedly, maybe better than wine!
To read more about this study http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/01/060119232848.htm
Dawn at http://www.wholehealthbydawn.com for more articles concerning whole health of the body, mind and earth
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