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Beer Added To The Food Pyramid
Alehound writes " Beer Is Food: The US Government labeled beer(alcohol) as a drug, BeerAdvocate.com begs to differ as they inform their reader that beer can be a part of your diet in a healthy way. Beer does a body good? So the "Beer Gut" is a myth? So why the hell do I have a gut? And yes these guys do drink beer for breakfast." It's only 10 in the morning, I'm dumping out the half pot of coffee left, and cracking open a Boddingtons! Do it!
So why the hell do I have a gut? Just a thought but, do you sit in your chair from dusk till dawn? That could it be you know.
I've decided to try one beer with each type of cereal I have in my cabinet. I can honestly say that my cereal is MUCH better with beer!
So are we going to start seeing the fancy labels which are on all the other foods? I wonder what they will consider the recommended serving size? Personaly,I would like to see them use 6 cans as the RDA.
The FDA determines the proper adult dose for a drug by giving increasingly higher doses to a bunch of rats until 50% of them die.
I know this because I was told about a supplement that tried to get FDA approval as a drug, but it failed because it could never kill the rats. Therefore it could only be approved as a food (having strange effects on the product's marketability).
So perhaps the FDA got some rats really drunk and they actually got half of them to die...
What a suprise, beeradvocate.com is trying to promote beer.
/.?
What does advocate mean again?
And why is this news on
The ads for Low-Carb beer show fit-n-healthy folks in the middle of various inviogorating excercises. Alcohol may have some good effects on the body according to recent research, but the ads make beer look like Powerade for chrissake. Moderation is good. Preying on stupidity, suggesting that beer is healthy, is irresponsible.
On a similar note, I saw a print ad for Bud Light that showed a condensation-covered label; on that label was a strategically-placed water drop that just happened to make "Budweiser" look like "Bloweiser". Yeah right, just a coincidence. And no, I wan't looking for it.
-- "You can lead a yak to water, but you can't teach an old dog to make a silk purse out of a pig in a poke" - Opus
Unfrotunately, beer does itself contribute to the beer belly. It's not just a matter of how much carbs something has but what kind of carbs they are. Beer has maltose, which is actually one of the more troublesome carbs because it is digested quickly, spikes your blood sugar level quickly and brings with it an associated spike in insulin, which then brings your blood sugar level down low, and makes you hungrier. So, it is in fact the other stuff that makes you fat, but the beer often contributes to your wanting the other stuff. Different types of beer have different elements which modify the digestion process, so the effect varies. A nice stout seems to fill me up quite nicely, so it must have something going for it. But I have lost 25 pounds on my low-carb diet, so until I reach my target weight, I'm gonna hold back on the Guinness.
So why don't you drink water and eat cereal and yeast?
Simple. Because you can't get drunk off of water, cereal, and yeast.
"...whiskey count as beer?"
Rock!
A: It's fucking near water!
There has been more than one study that shows the effects of moderate alcohol consumption to be beneficial to cardiovascular health and in particular reducing the risk of stroke and Type II diabetes.
Also of interesting note, there is what is referred to as The French Paradox (which has nothing to do with French military might and their place in NATO). Instead it refers to the fact that the french have a diet high in saturated fat (think cream and cheese) and high high rates of alcohol consumption (think wine) yet have low rates of morbid obesity comapred to other nations (and especially to the US).
MMORPG fan-boy? Prove your worth
Boil the brauts in bud and onions, grill for a couple a minutes on the grill:
No second guessing if the brauts are cooked all the way though and it tastes GREAT!
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
In one episode of 'Cheers', Cliff is seated at the bar describing the
Buffalo Theory to his buddy, Norm. (I don't think I've ever heard the
concept explained any better than this....)
"Well you see, Norm, it's like this... A herd of buffalo can only move as
fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest
and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection
is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the
whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members.
In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the
slowest brain cells.
Now, as we know, excessive intake of alcohol kills brain cells. But
naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this
way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making
the brain a faster and more efficient machine. And that, Norm, is why you
always feel smarter after a few beers."
Semper ubi sub ubi
Beer (and other forms of alcohol) IS and have been part of a food pyramid for nearly 4 years!
Some Background For The Uninitiated
The concept of the Food Pyramid was proposed by researches at the US Department of Agriculture, who needed to convey the idea of a healthy diet (according to the dogma of the time) in terms of proportion, variety and moderation. Thus, the pyramid graphic was presented. The problem is that word, "dogma".
The USDA is by far not even close to the leading edge of nutrition and dietary research. Their food pyramid represented a diet heavy in breads, with a little less emphasis on fruits and vegetables. Meat was eschewed, as was diary, and fats, oils, and salts were placed at the top of the pyramid to emphasize that they were to be used sparingly.
Two problems with the Food Pyramid were immediately obvious. First, it ignored contemporary research and accepted medical though which stated that diets high in fish and poultry were beneficial. The USDA assumed that all means were bad because of their high animal fat content. But research at the time (and subsequent) proved that not all fat was bad, and not only was some fat good, but actually necessary. Also, the Food Pyramid didn't differntiate between breads that were healthy (whole grains) and those that were unhealthy (white rice, bleached flour, corn startches, pasta, and processed grains in which the fiber had been stripped chemically). They simply lumped all grains together.
The second problem was that the food pyramid tried to convey a sense of proportion by giving recommended serving amounts. But these serving amounts were meaningless to the average person. They needed to know what a serving was. Was it a gram, kilo, cup, pound, ounce, or something else?
Enter the Diet Fads
Actually, "Fad" diets aren't new. The term is used for just about any new diet which proclaims a principal not accepted in contemporary circles - so fad diets are not inherently bad, but most turn out that way. Fad diets did for Americans what the USDA didn't with thier Food Pyramid or "Four Food Groups" of prior years. It gave people a guide to how much of what should be eaten. The other problem is that these fad diets were targeted towards weight loss. Most of them worked for most people who tried them to some degree, but their failure came when the diet was over. Without a sense of proper nutrition, people reverted to their unhealthy ways of eating. Thus was coined the term "Yo-Yo" dieting, where a person loses weight, then gains it back, and loses it again. This constant state of flux is not healthy, and coupled with the sedantary lifestyle of the average American, it has lead to an epidemic of obesity.
The word "diet" itself has become synonymous with "trying to lose weight", and likewise has become eschewed by the very diet industry that gave rise to that misconception. Instead, they are using terms like "nutrition system" or "program".
Fighting Fat With Knowledge
Enter the molecular biologists, who have put the American diet and the human metabolism under a microscope. Some of the results they have come up with are startling, and have been used to construct a New Food Pyramid to counter the USDA's Food Pyramid. A notable development is the recognition that there are cultural differences that prevent a food pyramid for the American diet from being at all practical for other cultures.
Healthy, as in Beer
Beer, and other forms of alcohol, were discovered to be healthy in moderation. Moderation, of course, is the key to everything in a diet. A glass of wine daily can reduce risk factors related to heart disease and stroke. Beer was found to have a phytoprotein that actually aids in repairing cardiac muscle tissues. Red wine, long given to Soviet Nuclear Submariners, can protect the body from low levels of ionizing radiation (though potassium iodide is b