Healthy Drinking

Growing up my mother always used to say "Moderation is the key to success no matter the topic."

 

In my lifetime beer, butter, and eggs have been called deadly scourges, and also healthy enjoyments, by experts numerous times. It is like a ridiculous merry go round of insufficient knowledge and contradictory opinions that leads one to reject the opinions of "experts" more than it gives one confidence in them.

Hey, anyone remember when CFC's were gonna cause an ice age? I know current thinking of "experts" is they will cause overheating of the planet, but don't worry they will swing back the other way of thinking, to ice age, just give em a chance. They always do. And beer will be back to having health benefits too.

Whoever said worry is more unhealthy is certainly right.

 

Without knowing the answer to your own statement, that was a pretty large assumption. I've never read any information about big business interests pushing for prohibition.

 

5-10 beers a week is fine, regarding the alcohol. However, I'd be more worried about calories... Beer should be a substitude for a course in a meal : a stout can be the dessert, an IPA or a white beer the first course. Drinking a 33cl beer is like eating a nice big piece of pie. The problem is alcohol makes you hungry... I have no idea how monks used to be able to substitude a meal with a beer.

 

CFC's were implicated in ozone depletion, not global cooling. And recognizing the problem led to the banning of their use and a forecast for the problem to be fully fixed in the coming decades.

Let's not toss all of science into the same bin as the largely media and fad driven nutrition industry.

 

I guess you are right, it is hard to keep up with which ones are current, and which ones are debunked, and which potential catastrophe is linked to which potential cause. My main point is that they change their minds on the regular as they get new info on which to hang their incomplete theories and half baked opinions, and that is a brush, at least when it comes to the "science" of climate understanding, that I feel confident is not too broad by any means.

I know this thread is about that this week beer is unhealthy. Or is it healthy this week? Any updates about whether eggs and butter are currently healthy?

 

I don't disagree broadly, but your beef is really more with how the media reports scientific findings and how the public (and sometimes the government) latches onto a specific finding because it supports some pre-existing opinion or agenda. The nutrition findings you cite typically come from a single, or at best a small group of studies, that the media and the nutrition industry latch onto. For instance, did you know that the 'saturated fat is the devil' belief came largely from a single study that everyone agreed was very poorly done in the first place? Scary stuff.

Global warming, on the other hand, is a consensus derived over multiple decades by literally thousands of different scientists in dozens of different fields in dozens of different countries. Another ballgame altogether. And the action on CFC's is a good example of how a problem can be fixed if we focus on it correctly.

Now, I suspect we are pushing the limits of the new lax moderation guidelines. I'll take my medicine if I have to
But I think it's relevant to point out the differences between overstating or misinterpreting the results of a single, or small set of studies vs. findings that have stood the test of time, replication, and new data.

 

Everyone should use the AlcoDroid app (or whatever equivalent is on iPhone). Even if you don't trust the guidelines, it's good to know your weekly intake. If you don't want to know, you probably have a health issue.

Personally, I trust the CDC and NIH, so I try to stay under 15 drinks per week.

 

Me neither, and I teach it. The real economic factor that allowed Prohibition was the passing of the 16th amendment. Before income taxes, the government was reliant on taxes from alcohol sales.

Big business doesn't care what it sells, so long as it is profitable.

 

Well, I think my beef with global warming and climate science in general is the data we have to make proper decisions is about 1/1,000,000,000 of the data we need to examine to even begin to explain what is going on here meteorologically. And all these things, whether spread by small or large groups of scientists, seems to be media driven, if anything climate warnings moreso than the others.

 

From wikipedia (which most of you will probably dismiss)
"Tea merchants and soda fountain manufacturers generally supported prohibition, believing a ban on alcohol would increase sales of their products."

"Saloons frequented by immigrants in these cities were often frequented by politicians who wanted to obtain the immigrants' votes in exchange for favors such as job offers, legal assistance, and food baskets. Thus, saloons were seen as a breeding ground for political corruption."

I also read that the government wanted to allocate the grain production for military soldiers' food instead of beer, which I can agree with. I also read that businesses wanted higher worker production in the time of increasing industrialization. But right with those 2 quotes you have soft drink businesses competing against alcohol supporting the ban, you have political opponents supporting the ban to curb the votes for the saloon frequenting opposition, and even groups like the KKK supported alcohol prohibition. Yes the temperance movement was for prohibition because of the drunkenness and physical abuse which I am also against, but I don't really think the temperance movement alone instilled prohibition. There were various factors playing a role, and ultimately this is something that the government had to have real motivations to get behind. Just like today, there were special interests involved.
Also: http://www.history.com/topics/prohibition

 

You want the popular press over simplifications or the research findings. For the first go to Fox News and one of their news babes, or the food babe. For the other, get pub Med and maybe your own PhD, if needed to read the publications.

 

Off-hand there were Anti-Saloon League supporters Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie - among the richest men in the US at the time.

(IIRC, Ford and Rockerfeller, at least, changed their minds during the '20s, when they saw National Prohibition in effect.)

 

No, but it is a welcome side-effect.

 

Yes, you're right about Wikipedia because anyone can post anything, correct or not.

Just curious, where is the supporting data that tea merchants and soda fountain manufacturers supported prohibition? And what, exactly is a "soda fountain manufacturer"? The companies that made the furniture?

Also, first you referenced "corporate protocol" which I questioned. Then you switched to "big business" "special interests" and "political corruption." Those are quite different from "corporate protocol."

Can't really argue with the idea of "special interests" however, since any advocacy group, including the temperance movement, is a "special interest."

 

Wikipedia gets reviewed and edited. All of our history is from a long time ago, you can't prove everything... What I meant by corporate was just businesses trying to get bigger at the expense of everyone else, just like the big corporations today. You could probably call the early industrial age the "beginning" of what was to come. I don't really want an argument, just standing up for myself and giving my 2 cents. Sorry, I'm not a qualified historian, just making a statement. I guess I wasn't considering the temperance movement as a whole, but as a small portion of what the whole organized temperance movement really was. By general definition the special interests, politicians, and big businesses could be considered part of the temperance movement too...

 

Considering how many people die by drunk driving, i'd rather have that than prohibition again.

 

in college i certainly drank like my liver was on fire and beer would put it out.

never suffered (or felt or was documented) with any sort of problem caused by alcohol consumption. it wasn't until mid-senior year of college where i felt binging was getting old. before that we'd put away cases of beer thursday/friday/saturday night. post college is a different story, i RARELY binge drink and that is only when OSU loses or when i'm with friends from HS/college (which is rare at this point).

i think common sense comes into play. if you blackout every night that's a problem, both for your brain and liver (and probably your social life). drink if you wanna drink, don't drink if you don't wanna drink.

 

A thread like this brings out all the vagina that lurks on these boards.

My pops smokes reds, drinks heavily and eats steak everyday and he threatened to kick my ass for acting like a ***** the other day. He's 87.