fermentarium » lifestyle

Liquor Love

Petra Spiess — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 03:46:45 +0000

Humans are the only species on Earth known to voluntarily consume ethanol. The vast majority of other species have evolved an avoidance for what is essentially a biological poison. Drunk animals are more likely to die and therefore less likely to reproduce, so a trend towards sobriety echoes down the ages in most species. Except us. We will not only go to great lengths to obtain alcohol—even when it is illegal—but we will also consume so much of it we can become ill or die. Why?

It’s Chemical

Chemicals released when drinking moderate amounts of beer are pleasurable for many drinkers

For most people, drinking small to moderate amounts of alcohol is a pleasurable experience. The pleasure we humans derive from drinking is thought to be due to the effect of alcohol on the brain. A 2009 study conducted in rats found small to medium amounts of alcohol stimulate the release of endorphins—brain “feel good” chemicals. The mechanism is thought to be the same in humans and could be responsible for the slight euphoria many people experience after drinking. Interestingly, the high doses of alcohol were not associated with a greater release of these feel good chemicals.

As many studies can attest, humans will do all sorts of crazy crap to feel good, especially if we can get away with it without being eaten by a predator. Seeing as we are on the top of the food chain essentially and can rely on fellow humans to help us when we are impaired, the potential evolutionary costs of drinking are mitigated for our species. Hence frat parties.

It’s Social Bonding

Alcohol is not referred to as a “social lubricant” for nothing. The consumption of alcohol is known to decrease anxiety and to lower inhibitions in humans, leading sometimes to easier and more enjoyable social interactions. Anecdotally, this is most certainly the case at holiday dinners with otherwise barely tolerable family members. Many important human celebratory events frequently involve alcohol: weddings, birthday parties, holiday parties. Culturally, social drinking is highly acceptable and encouraged—solitary drinking however, is not. Alcohol consumption by humans is closely tied to the fact we are social species.

The use of alcohol in social bonding situations is heavily influenced by culture, even how people behave when drunk is culturally determined and varies from place to place. There is social significance even, to the type of alcohol consumed, it communicates social status information. For example: wine = higher class, educated consumer. Pabst Blue Ribbon = lower class, less educated or ironical hipster (depending on context).

Beer can bring people together, like at the largest American beer event, the Great American Beer Festival

The socializing aspect of drinking alcohol is perhaps the reason for its enduring persistence across most human cultures and most human times—even in the face of its potentially negative biological effects (but perhaps positive theological effects e.g. holding onto the toilet praying you will never drink again if you will stop puking).

It’s a Hobby

Generally speaking, the consumption of alcohol is not considered a hobby unless you happen to be a wine or beer connoisseur. Wine drinking and collecting has become a very popular pastime in the U.S., and a similar situation is occurring with craft beer. There is entire culture and product market surrounding these drinking related hobbies (especially with wine). In addition to the hobby of drinking alcohol, there is a huge hobby related industry for making it at home, both beer and wine. A significant aspect of both types of alcohol related hobbies (the collecting/consuming and the making) is also social as evidenced by the many beer and wine festivals held around the country each year.

Beer makes you more attractive… to mosquitoes

DJ Spiess — Thu, 27 May 2010 05:04:58 +0000

After several beers, you tend to think you’re a bit better looking than you are. Now researchers have scientific proof, you really are more attractive to females when you drink beer. The bad news is you’re more attractive to female mosquitoes.

How mosquitoes find dinner

Mosquitoes use olfactory cues to find their victims. Every person smells a bit different due to different hygiene, diets, or general health conditions. The more attractive the smell, the more likely you’ll be mosquito bait. Some studies have shown pregnant women attract mosquitoes, but I’m not sure what pregnant women and beer drunks have in common. Finding out why some people are more attractive to mosquitoes than others is important, because mosquitoes are vectors for diseases like malaria or West Nile virus. Determining what attracts mosquitoes and neutralizing the attracting scent can play an important role in preventing the spread of diseases. In a study titled Beer Consumption Increases Human Attractiveness to Malaria Mosquitoes by Thierry Lefèvre et al, researchers found people who drink beer smell better to mosquitoes. I guess the mosquitoes know a party when they smell one.

Beer makes you attractive to mosquitoes

25 of the human subjects were asked to drink a liter of beer, while 18 unlucky (or possibly lucky) subjects were given a liter of water. The researchers placed 50 adult female mosquitoes (Anopheles gambiae Giles sensu stricto) who had never eaten blood (read “very hungry”) in a cup downwind from both a subject and an open air vent. At a point in their flight, the mosquitoes have to choose between open air or human stink. The mosquitoes showed a preference for the subjects who drank beer.

This is the setup for the experiment. One of the paths led to the beery subject, the other led to fresh air. No beer drinkers were harmed in the experiment. (image from paper)

The mosquitoes were counted by the number motivated enough to fly upwind, and those smart enough to pick the path which led to a stinky human. Beer consuming subjects significantly motivated more mosquitoes to fly upwind. 47% of the total number of mosquitoes flew upwind for beer drinkers, compared to 38% flying upwind for water drinkers. Of the mosquitoes who flew upwind, 65% picked the correct path to the beery victim compared to 47% picking the path to the water drinking subject. For beer drinkers (and the mosquitoes), that sucks.

All of the subjects were tested before and after drinking their beverage, so it wasn’t just luck that the beer group smelled better. The increase didn’t happen until after they pounded the beer. Their CO2 production (breathing) and body temperature had no effect on attracting mosquitoes. The big question is “why beer”?

Why beer might make you more attractive

The study really doesn’t say why the mosquitoes prefer beer drinkers. It would be interesting to see if the results are the same after consuming a shot of vodka. Since they mention pregnant women are more attractive to mosquitoes than other human snack bars, I wonder if the attraction is hormonal. There are hormones in hops, so that could be a link. A test with vodka could rule out this possibility. It is also possible multiple factors make some humans tastier than others, and hormones are just one attractant.

Lesson learned: when your at your next beer picnic, bring the DEET (N,N-Diethyl-meta-toluamid).

(Source: Lefèvre T, Gouagna L-C, Dabire KR, Elguero E, Fontenille D, et al. (2010) Beer Consumption Increases Human Attractiveness to Malaria Mosquitoes. PLoS ONE 5(3): e9546. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0009546)

Party animals – Do animals get drunk?

Petra Spiess — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 05:02:55 +0000

Pissed Pacyderms

Stories of drunk wild elephants have a long history in Africa. Supposedly elephants get sloshed by eating the fermented fruits of the marula tree. Hilarious footage of an elephant purportedly doing just that is included in the 1974 animal documentary “Animals are Beautiful People” but in 2006, researchers showed plowed pachyderms are just a myth. In the paper “Myth, marula, and elephant: an assessment of voluntary ethanol intoxication of the African elephant” published in Physiological and Biochemical Zoology, researchers calculated an adult African elephant would have to consume an unrealistic number of overripe marula fruits to get the job done and concluded “there is no clear evidence of inebriation in the field”. What explains the persistence of drunk elephant stories then? The lead author, when discussing the paper with National Geographic, explained: “People just want to believe in drunken elephants”—undoubtedly one of the funniest quotes ever in scientific journalism.

Drunk elephants are funny, but are there drunk elephants? (image from Olivier Delaere)

Elephants may not become intoxicated under natural conditions, but there is evidence elephants can develop a taste for human alcoholic beverages and turn into mean-ass drunks. There are many reported incidents of elephants in India seeking out and drinking human made rice beer. They subsequently tear shit up or even join the not so exalted ranks of drunken Darwin award winners by getting themselves killed. In 2004, a group of elephants reportedly drank rice beer in a remote Indian village, started getting rowdy, and knocked down an electrical pole on themselves, killing 4 of them (God who had to clean that up?).

This video was embedded using the YouTuber plugin by Roy Tanck. Adobe Flash Player is required to view the video.

Blitzed Birds and Skunked Shrews

The only thing more dangerous than driving while drunk is flying when drunk. There are many, many reports of birds —cedar waxwings in particular—getting smashed figuratively and literally on berries that have fermented. Getting drunk for birds often ends the same way it can for humans, that is to say, badly. The most common reports are of drunk birds flying right into buildings/windows or passing out, falling from trees and dying from the impact. I could find little evidence that birds ever get drunk for fun; it happens by accident when berries ferment under certain conditions and the birds are unable to distinguish a fermented berry from a normal one. Symptoms of drunkenness in birds can mimic symptoms of sickness from illness such as the bird flu, which as you can imagine, really freaks people out.

There is very little evidence that the vast majority of animals seek out and consume ethanol when it occurs naturally. This makes sense as animals do not have the infrastructure to protect them from their own bad decisions—such as police officers, ambulances, hospitals, and stomach pumps. If Jonny roadrunner eats fermented cactus fruit, gets smashed and passes out in the middle of Southern Ave in Tempe, Arizona, there won’t be any cadre of his fellow birds picking him up, he’ll be killed. Contrast that to the college student that once shared an emergency room with me with a near fatal blood alcohol content of 0.4 found under the same circumstances—he lived—thanks to the diligent work of his fellow humans. Animals don’t have that luxury. There are studies in fact, that show when fruit bats get accidentally intoxicated, they seek out a type of sugar that helps them sober up faster. We know that’s not the case with frat boys.

Despite this, there are a few animals that have been found to naturally consume ethanol, in particular a Malaysian treeshrew that likes to drink the fermented nectar of the bertam palm tree. However, the tippling treeshrew does not show any observable signs of drunkenness (where’s the fun in that?). Researchers theorize that the ethanol still has some type of pleasurable neurological effect the shrew gets in exchange for acting as a pollinator for the tree.

Some tree shrews are immune to getting drunk. Bummer. (image from iPhotograph on flickr.com)

Sober Primates (excluding us)

So what about our closest relatives, other primates? Turns out they are part of the temperance movement. Katharine Milton, a researcher looking into the evolutionary history of human fondness for ethanol, conducted a survey of primatologists covering 22 different primate species. Specifically she asked at what stage of ripeness monkeys preferred to eat fruit. Not one out of 22 species preferred overripe fruit (fruit with the most ethanol), and it appeared all species in fact, studiously avoided the ethanol containing fruit. Asked if any primatologists had ever observed what appeared to be intoxicated behaviors, only two incidents out of combined thousands of hours of observations were reported, leading the researcher to hypothesize that drunkenness in primates happens very infrequently. This makes sense as a drunk monkey is more likely to end up a dead monkey.

So what does sobriety in our closest relatives have to say about the human predilection for drinking ethanol till we puke? Alcoholic consumption is most likely cultural instead of biological. “As cultural animals, humans have little innate nutritional wisdom,” says Milton, “and for this reason may have unusual difficulty in determining when it is prudent to quit ingesting ethanol”. No shit, right? See prime example above of drunken- passed-out-on-Southern Avenue Arizona frat boy. Our fondness for the stuff, according to Milton, is also apparently fueled by existential angst. “Humans also appear to be the only animals with a highly developed sense of self-awareness and thus they may be the only animals that might wish to escape from their own consciousness”. Having on more than one occasion used alcohol for this exact reason, couldn’t have said it better myself.

Thanksgiving Day dinner alcohol ideas

Petra Spiess — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:08:40 +0000

Really, pretty much everyone needs or wants a drink at Thanksgiving. It’s the unfortunate truth that a little tipple helps you tolerate old Uncle Bob who will insist on regaling the table with his crazy conspiracy theories for hours on end. Thanksgiving is a holiday notorious for forcing people to be around others they would not normally tolerate but are regretfully related to, so a little alcohol can lubricate normally painful interactions. The key however here, is the word LITTLE—otherwise mixing alcohol and people you can’t stand is bound to end poorly with horribly hurt feelings and/or the cops. The following is a list of good alcohol choices or uses for Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving isn't just for eating turkey!

Lambics

Lambic beers are a specific style of beer with several types but the fruit added lambics are some of the most commonly seen and excellent choices for Thanksgiving drink companions. In particular, the raspberry and cherry lambics go great with turkey. Samuel Adams offers a cranberry lambic every year that might be fun to offer guests. Lambics are known for their somewhat tart and sour taste. Combined with the fruit additions the beer is very sweet and sour, although some brands such as Lindemans are much more sweet than others (I’ve heard Lindemans framboise (raspberry) described as “liquid sweet tarts”). Lindemans’ lambics also have very nice looking labels and can add to a Thanksgiving tablescape or buffet.

Lindemans Framboise goes great with turkey

Basting Turkey with Bourbon

Bourbon is an excellent addition to a Thanksgiving meal and can come in handy in many holiday situations. Basting a cooking turkey with bourbon gives it a very nice flavor. Just have a cup of bourbon next to the oven and when you baste the turkey with pan juices, throw a few tablespoons of bourbon in too. Of course, the baster may need some for themselves as well. A little for Tom, a little for you. Makes cooking turkey a hell of a lot more interesting. Bourbon is also a common ingredient for turkey glazes and gravies.

Pumpkin Beers and Cider

There are quite a few different pumpkin beers on the market. Most use spices reminiscent of pumpkin pies such as allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. Some brewers add pieces of pumpkin to the mash, others add a puree of pumpkin, no matter how it’s made, pumpkin beer is a fun and unusual fall themed drink for this fall holiday. There are few drinks more associated with fall than cider. Shockingly many people have never had alcoholic cider and think of it only as a non-alcoholic fall kiddie drink. Hard cider is actually very easy to make if you wish to deeply impress your guests—although if you haven’t made it before, do a test batch a few months ahead of the holiday. There are excellent brands of bottled cider at any liquor store as well such as Woodchuck and Woodpecker.

Thanksgiving cooking with beer and wine

Beer and wine can add a great flavor to many elements of the Thanksgiving meal. The first use is before the turkey is even cooked as an addition to a brining solution. Brining a turkey means creating a solution of salt and spices which is used to soak the entire turkey (a thawed or fresh one) for up to 36 hours—24 hours is the usual recommended time—before cooking. Brining is kind of pain in the butt, especially if you don’t have extra refrigerator space because the turkey needs to be kept cool the entire soaking time, BUT it produces unbelievable results. To use beer, substitute a dark beer for water in the brining recipe. Brining produces a super moist turkey utterly unlike those dry stringy birds you remember from nearly every Thanksgiving. It may be a pain, but brining produces a transcendent turkey. Wine makes an excellent addition to gravy. Many chefs use a few tablespoons to cups (depending on how much gravy you are making) to “deglaze” a pan while making gravy. Deglazing basically means pouring a liquid—in this case wine—into a pan that has been used to cook something and still has all the little brown tasty bits (called “fond”) in it. The wine dissolves the fond or gets it unstuck from the pan and adds a tasty note to the resulting gravy. You can use either white or red wine for making gravy and port also works well.

Drink ideas for your Halloween party

DJ Spiess — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 22:30:46 +0000

Halloween is not a kid only holiday—adults can get in on the scary fun too. Even kid centered Halloween parties can offer some themed drinks for the adults (just make sure they are clearly marked). Few things are more boring than kids’ parties, so throw the adults a bone why don’t ya? That, or throw your own adults only themed bash.

Spoooky Rims and Trims

Red gel icing can transform a normal wine glass into something creepy and fun

For a cool effect, use red gel icing (available in the bakery isle of grocery stores with the cake decorating stuff) on the inside rim of glasses to make a “blood rim”. Squeeze a small ring around the inside of a glass—martini glasses work especially well—with a few streaks going down and add cocktail of your choice. The gel will drip down and slowly dissolve into the liquid giving a cool “bleeding” effect.

Another fun holiday related rim idea—use colored sugar. Use orange, purple, and green sugar to line cocktail rims.

Black licorice can make great looking and fun swizzle sticks and straws in cocktails.

Scary Ice

Halloween ice cube trays

Strike some fear into drinker’s hearts with Halloween themed ice, which you can make with specialized ice trays such as these very cool skull and crossbones ones found at Amazon!

These novelty ice trays can be found everywhere around Halloween

Even regular ice cubes can be Halloweened out by the addition of candy corn or olives (they look like eyeballs).

Ice Faces

You can also make some very interesting larger ice for punch bowls by using plastic face masks. Seal the eye and mouth holes of the mask with taped on plastic wrap (taped on the front of the mask, make sure it’s tight so it won’t bow out when water is added). Put mask, front side down, in a container that has raised sides (such roasting pan), and stuff paper towels or newspaper around the mask to keep it from falling over. Pour water into the hollow part of the mask and place in freezer for at least 24 hours. Once thoroughly frozen, take mask out and dip the front in a bowl of hot water to loosen the ice, then turn the mask over to free the ice face. Float ice face in punch bowl. For a super creepy effect, add red or green food coloring to the water before you pour it into the face, or add some spots of red or green jello.

Halloween Jello Shots and Shapes

Put a holiday spin on Jello shots by making orange and purple ones. You can also create jello shot shapes in Halloween forms. Pour the liquid jello onto a cookie sheet with raised edges, chill for several hours, then use Halloween cookie cutters to make bat, pumpkin, etc.. shaped jello shots.
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Pumpkin Ice Cooler

Pumpkins make great, fun coolers for beers and a stylish party decoration. Take a large pumpkin (larger the better), and cut a wide top, you can get creative with the edge either using the traditional “v” notching, a more modern circular cut, squares, whatever. Scoop out the guts and toss (or keep the seeds for roasting). The easiest way to cut pumpkin tops is to use the small saws with handles they sell in the specialty pumpkin carving kits. Put ice in the pumpkin, and place beers in the ice. If you want to get really in the spirit of the season, fill the pumpkin cooler with pumpkin beer.

Pumpkin Beers and Themed liquors

Every fall quite a number of brewers release a pumpkin ale. Beer Advocate has an excellent listing and reviews of each. Pumpkin ales often are evocative of pumpkin pies, using some of the same spices. Many of them also have great looking labels which can add to a Halloween party’s ambiance.

Pumpkins aren't just for Halloween. They make great fall decorations and fall beers too!

There are other liquors that work well for Halloween including black vodka (looks really cool in mixed drinks), pumpkin vodka, pumpkin schnapps, and even pumpkin wine.

It isn’t easy drinking green

Petra Spiess — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 17:10:20 +0000

The word green—formally a noun, now typically an adjective—is applied to just about anything possible (green dog food!). Opinion polls and the American tradition of the focus group both have found the populace expressing more concern for the environment, hence a deluge of green labeled products in the last few years, including alcoholic drinks—most notably beer and wine. If one wishes to indulge but doesn’t wish to have the guilt of wrecking the environment added to the inevitable stupid-crap-people-do-when-drinking, what should you look for?

Organic drunkenness versus conventional

A drink that uses organic ingredients is a good for the planet right? Suprisingly there really isn’t a lot of hard research (read published, peer reviewed studies in scientific journals) on this subject. It’s probably most accurate to say under certain circumstances, it may be less bad on a short time scale or better on a longer time scale. Which is better for the planet, conventional versus organic agriculture is—all advertising by the organic industry aside—extremely complicated. “Better for the planet” for the purposes of this article means less polluting, less non-renewable energy consumption, less damaging to the soil, less production of greenhouse gases, and less negative impact on biodiversity.

Growing hops without pesticides is very difficult to do on a commercial scale

Pollution

Organic agriculture is easier on the environment than traditional production methods in a some ways. Organic methods eschew the use of chemical fertilizers, using animal or plant based products for this purpose instead. This has several benefits but also some drawbacks. Manure based fertilizers maintain or even improve soil fertility with much less pollution—chemical fertilizers, because of their chemical composition, easily leach into groundwater, lakes, or rivers which can cause oxygen sucking algal blooms that kill everything. Organic agriculture certainly comes out on top in the pollution department.

Energy Use

The creation of chemical fertilizers involves the use of a non-renewable ingredient—natural gas. However, animal and plant based fertilizers can also use quite a bit of energy—for transportation—and can produce the greenhouse gas methane during their composting and cow fart stage. Manure fertilizers also contain less nutrients by weight than chemical fertilizers. Also added to the what-is-greener equation: organic fields can produce less crop per area than traditional methods, meaning more land is needed to get the same yield. Depending on the location, methods, and crop in production, organic versus traditional agriculture may come close to similar levels of energy use but this is obviously, highly variable. In a 22 year study assessing the differences in energy use between conventional agriculture, organic animal manure agriculture and organic plant manure (legume) agriculture, researchers found the organic systems used 28 and 32% less energy than the conventional system (Pimentel et al. Bioscience 2005 55:7).

Greenhouse Gases

Greenhouse gas production in both types of agriculture comes from the combustion of fossil fuels required to run all the equipment needed (including transportation), fertilizer production (including the production of animal and plant based organic fertilizer), and soil processes that occur during production. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (N2O) and methane (CH4). Organic production generally involves increased tillage or tractor usage which is damaging to the soil and releases CO2 into the atmosphere. However, using manure as fertilizer replenishes soil carbon and can remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Like I said, complicated. Which presumably explains why I had such a hard time finding scientific studies that compare the net greenhouse gas emissions of organic versus traditional agriculture. Since I could not find such a study after quite some time looking, I’m going to hazard a guess. Since organic agriculture can use less energy than traditional, I’m going to say overall it probably also produces less greenhouse gases—but that’s not a given. A qualified maybe here.

Biodiversity

Biodiversity is the number of different species (plant, animal, bacteria, fungi, you name it) in a specific area or habitat. Higher numbers are assumed to be good, but there is significant debate in the science of ecology—as opposed to “environmentalism” which is something else—whether this is the case. In general parlance and most certainly in marketing materials for organic products however, the more creepy crawlies = good, less = bad is the dominant thinking. Organic agriculture wins hands down in this category. A metastudy (a study of many different, related studies) published in 2005 (Biological Conservation 113), found land under organic agriculture had significantly higher biodiversity than conventional agriculture in most cases. The difference was attributed to more animal friendly cultivation methods such as the non use of pesticides and herbicides in organic agriculture.

Although there isn’t really enough scientific evidence to satisfy me (meaning multiple studies done with a variety of crops in a variety of places in both organic and conventional paired plots for several years), it does seem safe to say choosing beer or wine with organic ingredients is probably more green than the same products made with conventionally grown ingredients. And if you like bugs, organic is definitely better. However, because it’s a complicated calculation, consuming alcohol made from organic ingredients most likely isn’t as green as people think it is. If you choose a beer or wine that is organic but shipped from a long distance instead of locally, the pollution and greenhouse gas production from the transportation alone may negate the environmental benefits of organic growing methods.

Local Drinking

There’s been a big upsurge in interest in local eating and by extension, drinking. Eating and drinking local means exactly what it sounds like—going out of your way to purchase and consume locally made products. The idea here is to reduce transportation effects on the environment. Now living in the Front Range of Colorado makes this easy—there are many local craft breweries and quite a number of wineries in the state on the Western Slope. However, if you live somewhere that’s not too hot for growing either grain or grapes, drinking locally will be significantly more difficult. However, anytime you can reduce transportation required for the creation, distribution, and sale of an item, the more green it will be. AND, walk to the liquor store/pub instead of drive, that will also increase the green quotient.

Of course, the ultimate local drinking is to grow the ingredients and make the beer or wine yourself. Grapes are fairly easy to grow in many parts of the U.S., but growing enough of your own barley can be a bit of challenge. Hops however, are very easy and can even be grown in containers. Compost the leftovers and you will really be able to feel environmentally smug.

Drinking at local pubs in walking distance reduce transportation effects and drunk driving!

Sustainable Brewers and Wineries

Another option for green drinking is purchasing products from breweries or wineries using sustainable methods or technologies in production. New Belgium brewery in Fort Collins, Colorado is well known for their sustainable, green practices such as their use of wind powered electricity and using more efficient brew kettles. As far as wineries go, many wineries are switching to organic production or biodynamic production—which is essentially the same as organic with some ridiculous new age mysticism thrown in for good measure.

Greener Drinking Tips

Walk to the bar/liquor store
Buy beer or wine made with organic ingredients
Grow your own ingredients and make your own beer or wine
Buy from local breweries or wineries
Buy from brewers or wineries using green technologies
Compost your vomit

Will a drink a day kill you?

DJ Spiess — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 05:17:18 +0000

Lately there are two reports circling the globe on the Internet. One says an alcoholic drink a day will help you live longer, the other says a drink a day increases your risk to cancer. Not sure who do believe? I’m not sure either. Here’s a tale of two drinks.

Is the glass half-empty or half-full? Will a glass a day kill you?

It was the best of beers…

In the March issue of Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, the study Functional Limitations, Socioeconomic Status, and All-Cause Mortality in Moderate Alcohol Drinkers (2009) found that moderate alcohol consumption reduced mortality rates significantly by 28% compared to those who abstain from alcohol.

The study followed more than 12,000 people aged 55 or older over the course of four years. The researchers asked the subjects questions about their lifestyle including their alcohol habits, age, gender, race, smoking, and obesity. They also took into account any comorbidities the individual might have. The researchers then counted the people who died before December 31, 2006, and examined the different lifestyles in detail.

The researchers controlled for the various factors which could influence early death, and found moderate drinkers maintain their survival advantage even after adjustment for these factors. This study suggests those who drink moderately live longer.

The researchers also found one drink or less per week had no advantage. Most studies, including this one, show the “sweet spot” is one to two drinks per day. Before you go out to hit the bars, the study also showed consuming three drinks or more per day increased your risk of death by 11%.

It was the worst of beers…

Now if you can remember way back to January of this year (a long time ago I know) you might remember the story floating around the Internet which said consuming one drink increased your risk for cancer. This came from an expert report published in 2007 called WCRF/AICR Food, nutrition, physical activity, and the prevention of cancer: a Global Perspective by the World Cancer Research Fund. The claim was extrapolated from the charts for bowel and liver cancer to estimate the risk associated with 2 units of alcohol.

This report reviewed thousands of leading research studies relating to cancer prevention. For alcohol they looked at many different studies from around the world and compared the results to see how many showed an increase or decrease in specific cancers. You can look at it as an “average” of all selected studies. The report claims none of the studies showed statistically significant contradictory results. Most of the studies did adjust for drinkers who smoked.

The report claims “the evidence is that alcoholic drinks are a cause of cancers of the mouth, pharynx, and larynx; the oesophagus; the colorectum in men, and the breast; and probably of liver cancer and colorectal cancer in women”. The report states “there is no significant evidence that alcohol protects against any cancer” and there is no safe amount of alcohol. One drink a day can put you at risk.

Now what?

I’d normally tend to think there was some cherry picking in the expert report, but the report looks very solid. Over 200 scientists around the world were involved in creating the report. The results were assessed by a panel of 21 scientists who were supported by observers from the United Nations and other international organizations. It’s hard to find fault when the work is so thorough.

On the other hand the results in the expert study were extremely one-sided. There have been so many studies demonstrating the health benefits of wine it’s hard to believe none matched the World Cancer Research Fund’s criteria for quality. While the first study came out much later than the expert report, I know this is not the first study touting the benefits from drinking alcohol. Search for “red wine resveratrol” on Google and see how many studies there are!

The differences are most likely in the goals of the studies. The first study looked at how alcohol influenced lifespan, while the second study looked at how alcohol influences cancer rates. I guess you could say a person who drinks alcohol increases their risk to cancer, but they live longer.

What are your thoughts? Will a drink a day kill you?

How to build strong bones: Drink beer

DJ Spiess — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 01:39:09 +0000

A new study to be published in the April 2009 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition shows moderate consumption of beer or wine increases bone density. As you get older your bone density shrinks, so causation or a strong correlation with moderate consumption could help with an aging population.

Beer might actually build a better body! (Image by Keone on flickr.com)

The researchers found subjects who consumed 1-2 drinks had higher bone density than those who abstained. The study also found the association was stronger with beer and wine than spirits. The researchers believe other compounds such as resveratrol in wine or silicon in beer contributed to the increase in bone density, since the bone density did not increase more with spirits consisting of mostly ethanol.

They also found the benefit dropped off dramatically for men who consumed more than 2 drinks per day. These men had significantly lower (3.0–5.2%) hip and spine bone density than men who had 1-2 drinks per day. The researchers stated they did not know for sure if the same drop in bone density was demonstrated in women. Having never heard of a sorority, the researchers claimed they were unable to find women who regularly over-indulged.

The study looked at bone density of men and women aged 29 to 86. Most of the women in the study drank only wine. This made it difficult for the researchers to make any claims about women beer drinkers and bone density. The average age in the study was 61, so they were also unable to make any strong conclusions about the beer and wine effects on bone density in younger women.

The subjects were slightly heavier with an average BMI between 27 and 29. The researchers did note only 4% of the post-menopausal women were on medication for osteoporosis (medication to increase bone density), while the rest of the men and women were not taking any medication.

(Source: Effects of beer, wine, and liquor intakes on bone mineral density in older men and women)

How to get beat up on St. Patrick’s Day

DJ Spiess — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:55:43 +0000

St. Patrick the Englishman

St. Patrick was born and raised in England. Just mentioning this will raise the dander of at least one drunk Irishman on St. Paddy’s day. Patrick wasn’t what you’d call British, he was a Celtic Briton. Calling him British is just more fun. Either way, he was not Irish.

Was there even a real St. Patrick? (image from timshortt on flickr.com)

If he’s English how’d he get to Ireland?

St. Patrick arrived in Ireland via kidnapping. He was kidnapped at the age of 16 by Irish raiders, and forced into slavery for six years. After six years, God told him to get out of Dodge Dublin and return to England (he wasn’t actually in Dublin, but you get the point).

Stockholm syndrome

Apparently he had so much fun with forced labor in Ireland, an angel told him God was just kidding and he needed to go back to Ireland as a missionary. When he returned, he studied in England (or France depending on your history source) for 15 years to become a priest. After he was ordained, his first task was to minister to the Christians living in Ireland and to convert the rest of the Irish. Lucky him. Returning to Ireland, he was greeted with beatings from thugs and a hostile Irish monarchy.

St. Patrick had sloppy seconds

Note his first task in Ireland included minister Christianity to the Christians already living there. He did not introduce Christianity to Ireland. Palladius, the first Irish bishop, was sent by Pope Celestine in 431 A.D. to minister to “the Irish who believe in Christ” before Patrick. Any one who has ever played chess knows you send the pawns in before the bishops, so there were missionaries in Ireland before Patrick was ever kidnapped.

St. Patrick is schizophrenic

There is more lore to St. Patrick than reality. The truth is much of the St. Patrick persona is derived from several missionaries at the time. Even the Irish cannot agree who St. Patrick was. If you ask a Catholic Irishman, he’ll tell you St Patrick was directed by the Pope to bring Christianity (Catholic-style) to Ireland. If you ask a Protestant Irishman, he’ll tell you St. Patrick was an Irish hero who was anti-Catholic and created a Celtic Christian church with their own symbology.

St. Patrick isn’t a saint

Ask an Irishman which Pope cannonized St. Patrick, and you’ll most likely get a blank stare. The reason is St. Patrick is not a saint. He is not an official saint recognized by the Catholic Church. There have been efforts to make him a saint as recent as John Paul II, but none have recognized the man as a saint. The reason is there is too much myth surrounding the man. It is hard to determine what he did, what others did but attribute to St. Patrick, and the stuff that was made up after too many pints of stout. To be a saint, he needs three verifiable miracles. The only miracle anyone attributes to him is removing the snakes from Ireland.

Ireland never had snakes

Snakes are rarer in Ireland than albino cobras!

When St. Patrick drove the snakes from Ireland, apparently he drove all snake fossils out of the country too. No scientific evidence has ever been found showing snakes ever existed in Ireland.

If snakes ever did exist on Ireland, the ice age most likely drove the snakes away. Ireland was blanketed with ice 15,000 years ago, and the island hasn’t had a land bridge to England since. Snakes cannot travel across icy oceans, and Ireland has 12 miles of icy water seperating them from England. Other islands do not have snakes. New Zealand and Hawaii also do not have snakes, as well as many other smaller islands.

Here are a few bonus items to get you beat up if the above items do not work.

Irish have more babies outside of Ireland

Thirty-six and a half million people in the United States claim they are Irish. This number is almost nine times the population of Ireland (population of Ireland is 4,156,119). Most of these people have never set foot in Ireland.

Notre Dame is not in Ireland

It’s in France. Every child who has seen the Hunchback of Notre Dame knows this.

Most colleges at the turn of the last century were formed by different religions. There were Methodist schools (Southern Methodist), Mormon schools (Brigham Young), and there were Catholic schools. Notre Dame was founded in 1844 by Catholic missionaries (not Irish). They are known as the Irish because the school was known as a Catholic school, and many Americans associated Catholic with Irish. The “Fighting Irish” name for the football team originated the 1920s by alumnus Francis Wallace in his New York Daily News columns.

If all else fails, wear orange

Orange is the color of Protestant Irish and gets it’s roots from William of Orange. The Protestant Irish and the Catholic Irish don’t really play well together. They have been bickering (read “blowing up each other with bombs and such”) since the 1200s. Wearing orange in an Irish bar is like wearing red at the running of the bulls. It makes you a great big target.

So why celebrate?

The real reason most people celebrate St. Patrick’s day is because it’s fun to get drunk. Not so much fun the next day, but that is tomorrow’s worry. So raise a pint to the myth and enjoy the evening. Best of luck to you, and Erin Go Bra-less!!

Will beer make your boobies bigger?

DJ Spiess — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 23:04:55 +0000

Women are often looking for a way to increase the size of their breasts without resorting to painful surgery. One of the crazier ideas I’ve heard recently to reach this goal is “drink beer”. My first thought was to toss this one immediately into the beer myth category and forget about it, but being a man I figured it would be a good idea to do more research first.

The Bulgarian Boob Beer

Hope as you might, Boza beer will not help increase your bust size (image from fortes on flickr.com)

When Bulgaria entered into the European Union (EU), men from all over Europe flocked to Bulgaria to buy Boza Beer. One reason might be Bulgaria’s entrance into the EU which removed taxes and duties on the beer, making the beer cheaper. The real reason is Boza Beer claims to naturally enhance the size of women’s breasts, and European men were more than willing to make the drive to help their ladies out.

Boza is a low alcohol wheat beer (calling it a beer is questionable). It’s made with fermented wheat and is around 1% ABV. There are four vitamins (A, B and E) and about 1000 calories per liter. No one really knows which ingredient in the beer increases the breast size. There are no studies which actually show any increase in breast sizes from drinking Boza Beer. It’s all word of mammary at this point.

Why would you think beer increased breast size?

The reason behind the myth isn’t as crazy as it first sounds. Beer contains small amounts of phytoestrogens, a naturally occurring plant compound similar to estrogen. Hops are sometimes the ingredient in natural supplements sold to increase cup sizes. Since beer contains hops, the hope is the phytoestrogens in hops are passed on to the beer and then to the breasts.

The specific phytoestrogen believed to be responsible for this breast enhancement is called 8-prenylnaringenin, but there are no studies linking 8-prenylnaringenin to bigger boobs. The only study which comes close is an 1999 study which reported anecdotally “menstrual disruption” in female hop workers (Milligan, Kalita, Heyerick, et al., 1999). That is not even in the same zip code as boobs. Other studies attempting to link estrogenic effects with 8-prenylnaringenin are either seriously flawed or inconclusive.

Extra calories from beer may increase your bust size, but the hops in beer will not (image from Tawny Rockerazzi on flickr.com)

If that wasn’t enough to write off beer as a breast enhancement method, most beers do not contain 8-prenylnaringenin in detectable quantities. The highest concentration found was 19.8 μg/L (Tekel, Keukeleire, Rong, Daeseleire, and Van Peteghem, 1999). At best only about 10% to 20% of the 8-prenylnaringenin in hops makes it to your beer. Of course different beer styles and production methods can influence these numbers greatly. I’m not sure the study included a super hopped IPA. Regardless of how much makes it to the beer, the science doesn’t pan out.

Weight increase makes bigger breasts

Boobs are mostly fat. One way to get bigger breasts is to get fatter. Even in this case, beer would not be a good quick solution. Most beers are around 110-140 calories, so you’d need to drink a significant amount for any immediate results (maybe 10+ to gain an extra 1000+ calories per day). The health problems you would encounter would not make it worth the effort. This, however, might be why Boza is touted as a breast enhancer. Drinking one liter of Boza per day will not get you buzzed, but it will add 1000 calories to your diet.

The other possible path to larger mammaries was noted on a homebrew warning label I once saw: over-consumption of beer can lead to unintended pregnancy. Pregnancy can cause breasts to swell, so in this case beer might lead to bigger boobs. Your mileage may vary.

The ritual of drinking

DJ Spiess — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 21:14:51 +0000

Corona Lime

There are several reasons offered for why the lime is added to the neck of a Corona bottle, none of which have any credence. The main reasons suggested for the lime are masking the light struck odors, protecting the lip of the beer from bugs big and small, or because a bartender wanted to start a fad.

Masking the odors from the beer being light struck is silly, because large macro beers like Corona use light stable hop extracts. The beer is unlikely to become light struck. The lime would not sanitize the lip of the bottle, nor would it be particularly helpful for keeping flies out of the beer. The book Buy-ology, by Martin Lindstron, claims a bartender wanted to start a fad, but I cannot find any other evidence or reference to this (I did email asking for a reference, but received no reply). This sounds like a story from a “friend of a friend”.

Ever wonder why limes go with Corona beer?

In the 1980s, Modelo, the company who owns the Corona brand, changed the bottle to the iconic clear longneck with raised letters and marketed Corona heavily to the American college students on spring break at the Mexican resorts of Cancún and Cabo San Lucas. The best explanation I’ve heard for the ritual’s origin is American college students just started adding the lime and the idea took off.

Regardless how the ritual started, Modelo’s marketing efforts had a dramatic effect on the Corona brand. Corona’s U.S. sales rocketed from 1.8 million cases in 1984 to 13.5 million in 1986. Barton Beers, Ltd., Modelo’s Chicago-based importer for the 24 states west of the Mississippi, advertised the beer featuring young attractive people (go figure) on tropical beaches with the beer and lime. The beer isn’t especially tasty, but this ritual helped take the Mexican beer to the top of American imports.

The ritual of the lime sparks an emotion in the consumer. You think of vacations on beaches, relaxing in the sand, and sipping beer. Even rapper Shwayze has a song “Corona and Lime” where the lyrics “baby will you be my corona and lime” reinforce the connection. Other Mexican brands have tried including the lime in their bottles, but when you see a beer with a lime in the top, you associate it with Corona.

Shaken not stirred

If you’ve ever seen a James Bond film, you know the line when he orders a martini – “Shaken, not stirred”. The reason for stirring a martini is to prevent the gin from becoming “bruised”. The ritual implies sophistication and wealth. Only the truly sophisticated would know why you do not shake the martini. Why Bond shakes it, who knows. Maybe to be different?

There is a huge amount of debate on the “whys” of stirring. W. Somerset Maugham declared that “martinis should always be stirred, not shaken, so that the molecules lay sensuously one on top of the other”. This sounds like a rich people version of “hippie” to me.

Believe it or not, the James Bond famous catch phrase “shaken, not stirred” was the subject of a medical study. In the 1999 paper, “Shaken, not stirred: bioanalytical study of the antioxidant activities of martinis”, University of Western Ontario biochemistry researchers determined there were health benefits to shaking the martini. The paper claimed “Shaken martinis were more effective in deactivating hydrogen peroxide than the stirred variety, and both were more effective than gin or vermouth alone”. This means shaken martinis are a superior antioxidant (that’s good). The researchers did not look into any benefits to adding the olive, so take note graduate students–there’s at least a paper, and possibly a thesis, in the olive.

Why is Guinness so foamy?

When your beer is poured, usually the bartender will avoid foam. The point is to pour the pint to the top as quickly as possible. Ever notice it is the opposite for Guinness? The bartender will pour a very foamy pint ¾ full. Then let it sit until more can be poured into the glass. You might even get a shamrock on the top of your Guinness if your bartender is particularly adept at pouring. The reason? – clever marketing.

Ever wonder why it takes so long to pour a glass of Guinness?

Since Guinness uses nitrogen in their beer, it loses its head much quicker. The nitrogen escapes the beer much quicker than carbon dioxide. In the early 1900s, Guinness was getting their asses kicked in the UK pubs. No one wanted to wait for a Guinness when you could get a pale ale much quicker (and thus be drunk much quicker). How did Guinness fix this problem? As the Buy-ology book by Martin Lindstrom discusses, they introduced a ritual surrounding the beer.

Guinness ran ads stating “good things come to those who wait” and “it takes 119.53 seconds to pour the perfect pint”. They serve their beer with a special faucet to perturb the beer as it pours. Guinness’ brewmaster, Fergal Murray, is quoted as saying “we don’t want anyone putting liquid into a glass”. They turned a liability into a beer ritual. Now Guinness is the most famous stout beer on the market.

The story of wine

Wine has a ritual too. First you are presented the bottle by the server, then the cork, you swirl the glass or wine, smell the glass, and eventually sip the wine. The wine cork is presented to check to see if your wine is corked (contains 2,4,6-trichloroanisole – TCA which makes your wine taste like ass). You swirl the glass to introduce oxygen into the wine so more aroma is released and you can see the alcohol lacing. Everything is done according to a time honored tradition for serving wine.

There are reasons for each step of tasting your wine, but the truth is this is a ritual. A funky smelling cork does not necessarily mean the bottle is corked, the wine needs to actually be tasted to determine this, and yet this step is still practiced. Pouring the wine into a glass should add oxygen, will swirling really add much more?

You smell the cork, but why?

Lick, shoot, and suck.

Of course there is a ritual surrounding tequila (and we’re not talking “tequila makes her clothes fall off”). The common ritual for drinking tequila is to start with a lick of salt and chase the tequila with a lime. Anyone who has done a shot of tequila knows this ritual.

Countries other than the United States do not necessarily have this ritual. According to Wikipedia, the German’s tequila shot, called Cimmamon (not cinnamon), replaces the salt and lime with cinnamon and an orange slice. The Mexicans drink it straight, but this is with higher quality tequila (one would hope).

The ritual probably started to dull the sharpness of cheaper tequilas. The truth is the ritual makes the shooter more popular.

Why introduce a ritual?

Wine makers can sell their product for hundreds of dollars even though Charles Shaw (Two Buck Chuck) has proved you can sell a wine for much less and still make a profit. Charles Shaw wines, like their Chardonnay, have even won awards against much higher priced wines. So how do wines sell for so much? The more expensive wines include a story, and are presented with a ritual. You’re buying the experience.

Researchers have shown a wine drinker will enjoy the wine more if the wine is more expensive. This reaction by their test subjects was not imagined. Their reactions could be seen on MRIs. The researchers found “that the brain might compute experienced pleasantness in a much more sophisticated manner that involves integrating the actual sensory properties of the substance being consumed with the expectations about how good it should be.” In short the price of the wine changed how pleasurable the subject thought the wine was.

In each of the cases above, the beverage is ordinary on its own. Are Corona and Guinness the best representatives of their style? No, there are better Pilsners and stouts. Does any wine deserve a $100 USD price tag? No, no wine costs that much to make. Once a ritual is introduced for each beverage, it may elevate a drink to superstardom because you’re no longer selling just a product, you’re selling an experience with mystique.

DNA Drinking

Petra Spiess — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 14:41:58 +0000

Humans have been altering the genome of many plants and animals for thousands of years. The wild “natural” grape still exists in parts of Eurasia and north Africa but bears only a passing resemblance to its relatives cultivated for the wine trade. Wild grapes are dioecious , meaning male and female flowers are found on separate plants while the grape cultivars in wine production are hermaphroditic (having both male and female parts on the same plant). In addition, grapes on wild plants are small and much lower in sugar content than their beloved cultivated cousins.

Hop growers constant release new hop strains with high alpha acids each year, but no one protests about this modification.

These significant biological changes may be a result of random mutations, selective breeding by humans, or most likely, both. Humans select plants with the traits they most favor—larger grain size, larger grape bunches, more sugar content in grapes, and breed those plants together to encourage these traits. This is called artificial selection and has touched and altered (many times very significantly) nearly every cultivated crop and animal used by humans today. Only recently, with the advent of biotechnology, have humans been able to alter the genome of plants and animals directly with genetic engineering—which generally means the insertion of a useful gene or trait from an unrelated source into another genome. Although genetic engineering is essentially in its infancy, it is starting to be tested on the plant and microbial species used in beer and wine production.

Resistance is not futile

Currently, the most common application of genetic engineering in beer and wine ingredients is genetic alteration to confer resistance to some negative factor such as disease or herbicides. Researchers from around the world at a variety of institutions are inserting genes for resistance in barley, hops, and grapes.

In barley, researchers have inserted a gene from a fungus which attacks other, damaging fungi in an attempt to provide some resistance to fungal root rot. Fungal root rot significantly impacts barley production, reducing yield, and selective breeding within the barley genome attempting to breed resistant strains hasn’t been very successful. Field trials of this fungal resistant barley are currently underway in Germany.

A similar situation is occurring with hops. Powdery mildew is an extremely annoying and damaging fungal disease that is the bane of gardeners and hop growers alike. Researchers are testing a genetically modified hop plant which has genetic material inserted from a soil bacteria to provide resistance to this disease.

How much of an organism's DNA are you willing to change for the perfect beer or wine?

Why would you want a plant to be resistant to herbicides? Aren’t they supposed to kill plants? Well yes, but only the plants you want to kill. 2, 4-D is a commonly used broad leaf (as opposed to grasses which are narrow leaf) herbicide commonly used in the Midwest on corn and other crops. Unfortunately 2, 4-D also effectively kills grapes, even grapes a significant distance away from a sprayed field. Researchers at the University of Illinois have inserted a gene from a bacteria that breaks down 2, 4-D into grape plants in an attempt to develop a 2, 4-D resistant grape vine. This would allow people who wished to grow grapes in heavily agricultural areas to do so without worrying their investment might be inadvertently destroyed. This genetically modified (GM) grape is currently undergoing testing.

Other researchers are investigating and testing transgenic grape vines for fungal disease resistance. These vines have a gene inserted for an enzyme called chitinase—which degrades chitin, a main building material of fungus. Early field trials in Germany however, show these genetically modified grape vines don’t show any more resistance to fungal infection than normal vines. Research on this type of front however, is ongoing in different places. Grape vines with disease resistance would translate to less use of the chemicals used to treat and prevent these diseases.

Reseachers have genetically modified barley to be fungal resistant
New grape vines are resistant to 2, 4-D, a common herbicide, so the vines be grown near agricultural areas
Disease resistant crops would require less chemicals used on the grapes

Improving fermentation

The creation of some wine styles—including chardonnay—involves a secondary fermentation process that occurs after the primary fermentation (where grape juice is converted to alcohol by yeast). This secondary fermentation, called malolactic fermentation, is accomplished by the use of a bacterial starter to convert malic acid to lactic acid, which creates a more pleasant mouthfeel and a less “sour” taste in the wine.

The bacteria that mitigate this conversion are somewhat finicky about temperature, competition with other microorganisms etc.. so there are some frequent problems during this process including stalled fermentation which can result in spoiled wine (bad for everyone!). Prior to the advent of biotechnology, wine yeast could not accomplish the conversion of malic acid to lactic acid as it lacks the enzyme to do so.
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Researchers at the Wine Research Center at the University of British Columbia however, have managed to genetically engineer a wine yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) that has the enzyme needed for malolactic fermentation—it was taken from the bacteria that usually performs this job (Oneococcus onei). This genetically modified yeast, called ML01, is the first genetically engineered wine yeast approved for use by the Federal Drug Administration in the United States, and Health Canada in Canada.

Other genetic engineering efforts in regards to fermentation include the splicing of heat resistant bacterial glucanase genes into barley to improve the malting process. Brewers malt barley by soaking the barley seeds in water to start germination. During germination, enzymes convert the starches in the seed to sugars which can then be fermented. Brewers must stop this process however, before the germinating plant starts to use the sugars for itself—which brewers do with heat. Heating germinating seeds however, also stops the action of the enzymes doing the work the brewers want done. Barley with more heat stable enzymes means they will continue to do the conversion work after the grains have been exposed to heat to halt germination, making the process more efficient.

University of British Columbia modified yeast to ferment the wine and perform a malolactic fermentation at the same time
Researchers are working on making barley heat resistant to improve malting

All wine grapes have been genetically selected for. Still places like France and South Africa are against genetically modified grapes.

The Specter of Frankenwine

To say there is opposition to genetically modified organisms would be an understatement. Many groups and individuals (indeed, entire countries) have expressed concerns and opposition to the development and use of genetically modified plants, animals, and microorganisms—including all of the ones discussed above in relation to the production of beer and wine. Concerns include safety for human consumption, ethical concerns about corporate dominance in the food market, and potential environmental damage.

Proposed and ongoing field testing of genetically modified grapes has caused a stir in France and South Africa, with much of the opposition coming from existing wineries concerned about “genetic pollution”—the unintentional spread of genetically modified grapes by cross pollination, or by the distribution of GM grape seeds by vectors such as birds. Wine is a product that depends heavily on idealized romantic notions of the interaction between humans and nature, and genetically modified organisms don’t fit in with many people’s ideas of this relationship.

This particular concern about genetically modified grapes seems to boil down to “they’re not natural”—a somewhat ridiculous argument considering the extensive manipulations humans apply to nature to produce wine now—artificial selection of grapes for generations, the application of herbicides and pesticides, the extreme soil disturbance of plowing, none of which is natural. This also assumes natural automatically equals good, perhaps forgetting for the moment that hurricanes are natural as are kidney stones.

Not everyone feels GM grapes are a good thing – especially France and South Africa
Grapes have been selected and modified for centuries
Grapes are rarely grown from seed, so cross contamination from pollination is very unlikely

Rational or not, it is the perception many consumers currently have of genetically modified plants; research for this article pulled up multiple articles from different sources mentioning the idea of “frankenwine” in relation to GM grapes. Therefore, the concerns of the winemakers are understandable, any blow to the “natural” perception of their product could be damaging to the wine industry. There is much less mysticism surrounding the production of beer, and as a result, less opposition to the use and development of genetically modified organisms in its production. More testing will determine if other concerns, such as the health and environmental concerns raised by GM opponents, are valid.

Inside Fermentarium – Episode 4

DJ Spiess — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 16:37:21 +0000

Wow this episode took far longer than it should have. Here’s the belated episode four!

Inside Fermentarium – Episode 4 from DJ Spiess on Vimeo.

Here’s the YouTube version: Episode 4 on YouTube

Links for this episode

Are you ready to fruit or spice your beer?
Beer Cheese Soup
Corona Lime Ritual
No Free Budweiser
PBR Art Contest and PBR Coffin
RC Cooler
Superbowl 2009 Ads

Don’t forget to subscribe to Fermentarium to make sure you never miss article or Inside Fermentarium episodes!

Follow @deege on twitter

Beer goggling girls find ugly guys sexy

DJ Spiess — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 14:39:11 +0000

A new study in “Journal of Psychopharmacology” found what all undergraduate blokes already know, female undergraduate students who drink find men more attractive than women who do not drink. Researchers showed pairs of photos of 60 men to 45 women. The women were asked to pick the more symmetrical face. The study showed facial symmetry detection performance is inversely related to typical alcohol consumption.

Symmetry is hot

Facial symmetry is an indicator of how attractive a person appears to others. The more symmetrical your face, the more attractive you appear to others. If your facial features are symmetric, you’re likely to be free of genetic defects and you’ll make a good reproductive mate. When you drink a beer (or other alcohol), your ability to determine the symmetry of a face is lessened. This is the famous “beer goggle” effect.

Researchers Dr. Kirsten Oinonen and graduate student Roxanne Sterniczuk also found facial symmetry detection performance fell with the number of recent alcohol related hangovers, how often the subject blacked out in the previous month, and how frequent the woman consumed alcohol. A correlation was found even for light drinkers. A woman who had less than five drinks a month fared worse in the test than women who abstained.

If a cute girl is interested in you when she's drunk, it might not be because you're attractive

Beery women find more men cuter

An interesting note in their findings is similar results did not emerge for dot symmetry perception. The beer goggling is specific to face symmetry. This means women who drink do not lose their ability to discern patterns of symmetric and asymmetric dots; they just lose their ability to tell if we’re cute. The findings suggest “the possibility of a neurotoxic effect of alcohol on facial symmetry perception ability in female undergraduate students”.
The most shocking finding is the test was performed on sober women. The study showed women who drink are less able to determine facial symmetry, even when they are sober. The drink you are buying her not only improves your chances, it helps other “less symmetric” guys look more attractive down the road. The women are beer goggling long after the all-night bender.

Don’t know why, it just works

The researchers think alcohol is modifying the woman’s brain structure, but they do not know how long the effect lasts or if the damage is permanent. The study only counted drinks within the past six months. According to the study, “no previous studies have examined the effect of alcohol history on symmetry detection”. I agree more research is required.

Are you as think as you drunk you are?

DJ Spiess — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 15:18:24 +0000

Not since the famous “sky is blue” study have we seen something so shocking as the research soon to be published in the March issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

According to the study, people use different words to describe they are drunk. Men are smashed or hammered, women are tipsy. There ya go.

This is not anything new, but there is more to the report which states understanding how people describe their intoxication can help researchers better understand self-reporting research. In short, when someone says they are sloshed the researcher can know just how drunk they were.

Are these girls drunk, tipsy, or hammered?

Different words for different drunks

For example, researchers found 222 of the women said they were “tipsy” after having an average of 4 drinks in a 2 hour period. Four drinks in two hours for women are considered “binge drinking” according to the study author Ash Levitt. A male might describe the same night as “hammered”. Hammered sounds significantly more intoxicated than tipsy, even though both sexes might be describing similar experiences.

On the surface the findings sound interesting, but to extend their argument further, a male in England might say he was pissed while someone in the USA might say he was hammered. Different words are used in different demographics. Like I said earlier, the research findings are not earth shattering.

The researchers lumped the words people used into two groups – moderately drunk and stinking drunk. The conclusion researchers suggest is to know the common words used and apply several choices of these words in future self-reporting studies.

Boys lie (so do girls)

Still anyone who has watched more than one episode of House knows people lie. I do not think you can determine how intoxicated a subject was in the past based on self-reporting. The experience is very subjective.

The amount of enjoyment the subject experienced can also color the evening. I’ve seen people go quiet after two beers, and others who are the life of the party after two beers. The first group might describe the evening as mellow, while others would describe the evening as wild. There are studies showing people can unknowingly drink non-alcoholic beer and still act very drunk.

Researchers (and many sobriety checkpoints) have also shown drunks can not count. They can’t even say the alphabet backwards or touch their nose. Self-reporting the number of alcoholic drinks really cannot be trusted. If they could, the iPhone would not be plagued with scores of beer counter applications.

What this means is you cannot reliably determine how intoxicated a person was by their recollection and you cannot determine the number of drinks they consumed. You are left with just the different words used by drunks to describe the experience.

50 words to describe how drunk you are

To be complete, here are the words I know of to describe intoxication. I expect a phone call for my grant money any day now.

addled
beery
bemused
besotted
bibulous
Bierleichen
blasted
blotto
boozy
buzzed
canned
cockeyed
crapulent
crapulous
crocked
delirious
dizzy
doped
drenched
drunk
drunken

ducking frunk
far-gone
fuddled
inebriated
intoxicated
jolly
loaded
mellow
muddled
nappy
pissed
pissed as a newt
plastered
shikker
shitfaced
sloshed
smashed
soaked
sottish
soused
sozzled

squiffy
stinking drunk
stoned
tiddly
tight
tipsy
under the influence
zonked

(Source: ABCNews, paper)

Don’t blame beer if you are angry

DJ Spiess — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 15:34:58 +0000

Researchers at the Helsinki University Central Hospital have found individuals born with a highly active version of the MAOA gene have a higher risk of impulse violence when drinking alcohol. The MAOA gene produces an enzyme that breaks down chemicals in the brain which are associated with mood. Too much of the enzyme mixed with alcohol creates a mean drunk.

The effect diminishes with age which is why you don’t see too many violent old drunks. Older drunks just yell at imaginary kids on the lawn.

There's a gene that makes some drunks angry drunks

The researches discovered “the bad gene/angry drunk” connection by studying 174 Finish alcoholic male offenders with a history of violence. The research will appear in the March issue of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

(Source: Telegraph.co.uk)

Inside Fermentarium – Episode 3

DJ Spiess — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:46:30 +0000

Wow this episode took far longer than it should have. Here’s the belated episode three!

Inside Fermentarium – Episode 3 from DJ Spiess on Vimeo.

Here’s the YouTube version: Episode 3 on YouTube

Links for this episode

Don’t forget to subscribe to Fermentarium to make sure you never miss article or Inside Fermentarium episodes!

Follow @deege on twitter

Inside Fermentarium – Episode 2

DJ Spiess — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 16:41:32 +0000

Inside Fermentarium – Episode 2 from DJ Spiess on Vimeo.

There's also a YouTube version. Feel free to link to this page, or embed the video on your site!

Links for this episode

Don’t forget to subscribe to Fermentarium to make sure you never miss article or Inside Fermentarium episodes!

Follow on twitter

Inside Fermentarium – Episode 1

DJ Spiess — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 16:31:53 +0000

Ok, so superstar is a stretch. This is the “pilot” episode for Inside Fermentarium, a weekly video podcast focusing on beer and wine. The shows will cover the similar material as the website, but won’t necessarily have the same stories.

I’ll have episodes on homebrewing, wine making, alcohol industry and culture.

Please let me know what you think, and what you’d like to see in future episodes!

Enjoy!

Inside Fermentarium – Episode 1 from DJ Spiess on Vimeo.

Links for this episode

10 Halloween costume ideas for beer lovers

DJ Spiess — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 00:51:15 +0000

The Halloween gods have smiled upon us. This year Halloween falls on a Friday, and this means lots of Halloween parties. Is your costume ready? Here are a few beer themed costumes ideas for you!

Looking for a beer costume instead of you normal random monster? Look no further!

The Beer Keg

This costume is fairly easy to construct. I’ve even seen it for sale at some Halloween stores. The idea is to construct a keg around your body and put a tap on your hat. You can construct one with a few small hula hoops and cardboard or cloth. The version I saw at the store actually pumped beer from a hidden can in a hat. The hat was constructed to look like a keg tap.

Your favorite bottle/can of beer

Here’s a popular beer costume: make yourself into a bottle of your favorite brew. Many replicate a Miller bottle because it’s easy to match the simple yellow bottle. With a little work, you could easily reproduce any bottle. The bottle part is easy, and you can make your “label” with a little work. Think how cool it would be to show up at your party dressed as a bottle of Chimay! I’ve seen this costume a few times at the Great American Beer Festival. If the bottles are there this year, I’ll get some pictures!

The Six-pack

This “costume” requires much more coordination than the beer bottle costume. Getting six friends to agree on a Halloween costume can be much more difficult than deciding a location for lunch. If you can find six agreeable friends, this is a cool costume to pull off. The idea is to all dress as the same beer bottle or can. You and five friends dressed up as beer equals a six pack.

Duffman

If you watch the Simpson’s, you know who I am talking about. Duffman is the spokesperson for Duff beer. Duffman is a satire on Bud Man, an expired Budweiser campaign aimed at college coeds (I wonder why they abandoned the campaign – duh). For this costume, you need a blue t-shirt, blue tights, a red hat, a red cape, red underwear (which go on the outside), dark sunglasses, and a belt made of beer. You can easily construct the simple Duff beer logo with paper. Be warned – people will come up to you throughout the night with very obscure Simpson’s references and expect you to know the exact episode.

Are you ready to get Duffed? Oh, yeah!

St. Pauli Girl / German beer garden girl

Nothing looks cuter than a girl in a dindrl. Thousands of internet photos from Oktoberfest can’t be wrong. The best part is the costume is cute and sexy, but doesn’t go overboard. This costume can be found at every Halloween store, usually labeled as “Beer Garden Girl”. You can try finding an authentic dindrl, but these dresses can cost as much as $300 USD. The fake beer garden versions sell for about $49 USD.

A girl in a dindrl is always a hit! Does this photo remind you of the photo with Jayne Mansfield and Sophia Loren?

Pawtucket Patriot

You could go as the patriot from the Samuel Adams, but Pawtucket Patriot adds the missing coolness factor (and few would recognize the real version). Pawtucket Patriot is a character from Family Guy who spoofs the Samuel Adams’ patriot from Samuel Adams bottles of beer.

If you're a fan of Family Guy, this is a fun reference costume

Beer God

If you’re thinking of a beer personality, why not go straight to the top and be a beer god? Dionysus is the god of intoxicating drinks. Girls can go as Ninkasi, the ancient Sumerian goddess of beer and brewing. This costume is fairly simple, and leaves lots of room for creativity. For Dionysus, start with a Greek god costume. For Ninkasi you will want to go more “Egyptian”. Try creating a wreath for the head from hops. Bring a clay pitcher (or clay looking) and fill with beer. Pour drinks for others, and you’ll be the life of the party.

Beer Monk

While the true Trappist monks might make boring costumes, a beer monk from the middle ages can be much more entertaining. Think more “Friar Tuck” and less scary images from your Catholic school. The monk costume is another simple costume. You can find monk robes at just about any costume store. Loop a beer mug around your waist or neck with a belt of beads. Again the idea is to be creative with the simple basic costume.

Beer fridge

This costume is easy to make. You just need a box and some creativity. You can have anything you want in the fridge, but really you want lots of beer! Isn’t beer in everyone’s fridge?? Pick the right beer (or wrong depending on perspective) and people will want to open you all night.

Breathalyzer

Another easy costume to make is a breathalyzer. The creativity in this costume comes from where you want drunks to “blow”. Again the costume starts with a big box. Dress it up with dials or lights to indicate different stages of being drunk.

Hopefully these costumes give you some ideas for your Halloween costume. It’s October, so get cracking on your costume!

Making Oktoberfest a local party

DJ Spiess — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 00:59:30 +0000

For most beer lovers, a trip to Munich is like a trip to the big game. Oktoberfest is the holy grail of beer festivals! Unfortunately with rising energy costs, the closest most will get is watching BeerFest at home. It doesn’t need to be that way and in my neighborhood we brought Oktoberfest a bit closer to home.

A few years back, two years before I moved into the neighborhood, a couple neighbors decided to hold their own Oktoberfest. One of the neighbors was a homebrewer, and the rest of the neighbors were willing beer drinkers. This was all they needed to start a tradition. Now six years later, the neighborhood Oktoberfest has a couple hundred attendees, a plethora of beer on tap, food, games, and a spiffy jumpy castle for the kids. One neighbor plans the festival and the rest of us chip in and help. So what do you need for your own Oktoberfest?

If you can't go to Oktoberfest, bring Oktoberfest to you!

Get a bunch of your closest friends

Seems obvious, but you need a supply friends to celebrate with. The best group is neighbors. Sure the downtown Oktoberfest of your metropolitan city might be fun, but celebrations are always better with a group of people you know. There are several hundred people in my neighborhood and the numbers are still growing.

The best part about holding the celebration in your neighborhood is no one drives home. It is an important consideration. You don’t want to serve everyone massive amounts of beer and then tell them to drive home 20 miles. Local is the new “cool”, and partying with your neighbors helps establish a great sense of community.

The hood is a great place to hang

We have a park in the center of our neighborhood where previous Oktoberfests were held. Unfortunately inclement weather and inconvenient distances to restrooms dictated we move our festival to the neighborhood community center. Many newer subdivisions have a community center. If you live in a neighborhood with a community center, I’d recommend hosting your Oktoberfest there.

If you have lots of kids in your group (it’s a law to have at least one under six here), you’ll need to consider ways to corral the kids. This is another reason our community center works. The center has a fence built all around it. This is just something for you to keep in mind when looking for a location.

Tents and fences are things you might want to plan for

A tent is a great idea if you expect lots of sun or possible rain. In Colorado, we expect both every ten minutes. A tent with tables makes a great place to eat and socialize, and provides protection from the elements.

Let the games begin!

While for most of us drinking beer all day is entertainment enough, others need more to keep entertained (I know, I thought that was weird too). For games, we usually have pretzel tosses, musical chairs, and other games. Some of the games come complete with prizes. This encourages even the shyest people to join in the fun.

Oom Pa Pa Music!

You can’t have an Oktoberfest without Oom Pa Pa music. It’s a moral imperative. Usually we have a boom box playing a CD on repeat, but as the party grows we hope to have a live band in the future.

Something for the kids

Unless you want your kids whining to go home every 10 minutes, you need a distraction – a really big distraction. Our method of distraction is a big jumpy castle . You can rent these for a hundred bucks. It’s like a big inflatable baby sitter.

If you can swing it, a jumpy castle will keep kids occupied for hours

Lots of Beer! (and food)

And oh yeah, you need beer. The best part about our Oktoberfest is most of the beer is homebrew. This adds a personal touch to the festival, much like the real festival in Germany. The first few years a different homebrewer provided the beer, but he moved away and I’ve stepped in his place.

Oktoberfest is the day I look forward to every year. In fact I am usually asking the planner about the festival in July. If you are making homebrew foryour celebration, you will want to start planning in July too. It takes a few months to make this much beer.

Each of these kegs is homebrew, and they all came back empty!

This year we had a Munich Dunkel, Vanilla Porter, Mandarin Orange Hefeweizen , Märzen , Blonde Ale, and Hard Cider – 30 gallons in all. The idea was to provide a little something for everyone. We even had homemade Root Beer for the kids. At the end of the party, we had a bit of Root Beer left. Lots of thirsty people!

As for the food, the party organizers bought sauerkraut, brats and hot dogs. Everyone else was encouraged to bring a side dish or a dessert. To make sure we didn’t get a stack of store bought cookies, we divided the responsibilities by last name. A through M brought desserts and N through Z brought side dishes. It works out great!

Eins, zwei, G’suffa!

Hopefully this gives you a few ideas to get started. Our local version of Oktoberfest started with a couple of guys hanging out with a few beers. Start small, invite everyone close, and eventually the party grows. The whole point behind the local version is to celebrate with friends in your community . Who knows, in a few years Oktoberfest might be the biggest local celebration in the world!

Vitamin Beer? I call Shenanigans!

DJ Spiess — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 02:19:21 +0000

Stampede Light is a pilsner containing vitamin B1 (Thiamine), vitamin B2 (Riboflavin), vitamin B3 (Niacin), vitamin B5 (Pantothenic Acid), vitamin B6 (Pyridoxine), vitamin B9 (Folic Acid) and Folate. The beer has 115 calories, which is average for a light beer. The (horribly designed) website for Stampede Light claims to add Vitamin Water to the beer after the brewing process. I wasn’t able to find the actual amounts of each in the beer.

Is Stampede Light really a healthy beer? Jessica Simpson says so.

Are vitamins in beer really a new idea?

Adding vitamins to beer is actually not a new idea. There are several beers in Europe experimenting with vitamin additives. Even Stampede Light is not a new beer. Stampede Light debuted in Texas back in 2005. As far as I can tell, it is the first vitamin beer in the USA, but it is far from being the first vitamin beer.

In 2002 the Scotts looked into adding vitamins to their beers. They wanted to investigate if there was any scientific evidence vitamin additives in alcohol could help reduce the number of alcohol related illnesses and deaths. The reason the Scotts were looking into adding thiamine to beer was an Australian study. Australian scientists claimed their research showed thiamine supplementation of beer was the most cost-effective way to prevent Wernicke-Korsakoff encephalopathy, which is a serious brain disorder resulting from a thiamine deficiency which occurs in alcoholics.

Back in 2003, British brewery George Gale and Co. listed their beers as “vitamin beers”. The brewer submitted a review paper outlining the ingredients and the nutritional content of their beers. Advertising watchdogs pointed out there was no evidence taking vitamins with alcohol had any health benefits. They were forced to withdraw claims their vitamin beer had any of the health benefits listed on marketing materials and coasters.

Even Philippine brewer/inventor Billy L. Malang has rights to the name “Vitamin beer” and claims it as an invention. The Thai beer won a gold medal at the European Union-sponsored Genius-Europe competition at the Budapest Fair Center in Hungary in May 2004.

The ironic thing is homebrew beer is rich in vitamin B. Homebrew usually has some yeast in the beer, and yeast is a good source of vitamin B. Many believe the rich source of vitamin B in homebrew protects drinkers from hangovers; however, hangovers can have many sources.

Vitamin beers have been around for a while
Stampede Light debuted in 2005 – only Jessica Simpson is new to the beer
Vitamin B is already in beers which contain yeast

Are vitamins in beer a good idea?

So you have to ask, is adding vitamin B to beer a good idea? Adding pyridoxine (B6) might not be a good idea. This vitamin has been suggested to alleviate hangovers, however studies have shown very high doses (usually 1000 mg/day) over long periods of time can cause painful neurological symptoms known as sensory neuropathy. Most vitamin supplements do not contain this much B6 and normal food consumption usually yields less than 4 mg/day, but putting this vitamin in a beverage which can be addictive to some people (alcoholics) may not be a good idea.

A study released this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed folic acid and vitamin B supplements not only do not help the heart, they may cause problems. Subjects received realistic daily oral treatments with 0.8 mg folic acid, 0.4 mg vitamin B12, and 40 mg vitamin B6.

The study ended early because the scientists said “we could not detect any preventive effect of intervention with folic acid plus vitamin B12 or with vitamin B6 on mortality or major cardiovascular events.”

They reported no positive effects from taking vitamin B, and they saw a slight increase in cancer in the test subjects. Another Norwegian study also noted an increase in cancer from vitamin B supplements.

Yikes! And we’re putting this in beer? There are other studies showing vitamin supplements are a bad idea, however, these are ones specifically citing vitamin B. It looks like adding vitamin B to beers is not a good plan. I’m not saying vitamin supplements are all bad, some people have medical needs to supplement vitamin deficiencies. Single vitamin supplements should be taken by the direction of a doctor.

Pyridoxine (B6) is dangerous in high amounts
Studies suggest vitamin B suppliments have no benefit, and might be harmful

Is this just a marketing gimmick?

Most beers with some yeast contain vitamin B already. I guess you could pass any unfiltered beer as a “vitamin beer”. I think where it could get dangerous is when you are adding more vitamin B to the beer than normal. Any vitamins over your daily requirements will usually pass through your system, but the studies above suggest it could actually harm you.

Vitamin sales in the USA are at all-time high as Americans look for quick fixes to health problems. More is not better in the case of vitamins and there is little to no research showing health benefits for vitamin supplements. Unfortunately the vitamin industry is not regulated by the FDA, so they can claim almost anything they want (with the exception of treating a specific disease).

It really looks like Stampede Light is just a marketing gimmick. If you’re selling something for your health, wouldn’t a scientist make a better spokesperson than Jessica Simpson? Anyone who knows Chicken of the Sea is tuna might make a better choice than Jessica Simpson to preach nutritional values.

Can red wine make you live longer?

DJ Spiess — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 06:04:08 +0000

We’ve all read the health benefits from drinking red wine. One joke that commonly gets tossed around for any ailment is, “You have x? Red wine cures that!” Distinguishing between myth and science can be very difficult. Everyone has heard that red wine might let you live longer, but did you hear the dosage required? Studies show alcohol is great for the heart, but not so good for the colon. And do sulfites really give you a headache, or did you drink too much the night before? Hopefully this article will help you clear up the myths from the facts.

Sulfites/headaches and red wine

Everyone knows that red wine causes headaches. It’s because of the higher amounts of sulfites in red wine… or is it?

Many sweet white wines contain more sulfites than red wines, but do not cause headaches. Dried fruits contain sulfites, but no one has claimed “dried fruit headaches”. The science shows that sulfites can cause allergic reactions, but only asthmatics get headaches from sulfites. If it isn’t the sulfite, then why are so many people getting headaches?

Red wine contains sulfites, but sulfites do not give you headaches

One hypothesis is histamines. Histamines are up to 200% higher in red wines than white wines. People who are allergic to the histamines, are also deficient in certain enzymes. Some scientists believe that the combination of the allergy and the enzyme deficiency cause the headaches. However, in a very small study (16 people), conducted by the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (Feb 2001), they reported no correlation between high or low histamine wines and headaches.

Others have pointed to the tannins as the source for headaches. Scientists have shown that tannins can release high levels of serotonins, a neurotransmitter that could cause the headaches. Some migraine sufferers have high levels of serotonins. However, tea, soy, and chocolate all contains similar amounts of tannins.

There is no known answer why red wine causes headaches. More research is required, but since sulfites are not known to cause headaches unless you are asthmatic, sulfites are not the culprit. It is known that too much wine the night before will likely give you a headache the next day, but that problem is a hangover with a very simple solution. Don’t drink so much next time! A simple, but potentially painful, experiment for the other red wine headaches that you can perform is to keep a notebook of all the wines that you try. Note which ones give you headaches, and avoid those.

Red wine and longevity

Maybe you have heard about the French Paradox? Many reports noticed that just 83 out of 100,000 Frenchmen die from heart disease compared with 230 in the US despite a significantly higher amount of fat in their diet. Why is that? Well the source is thought to be the red wine. Frenchmen consume far more red wine than American men. Many thought that it was related to the anti-oxidants found in red wine. The studies seemed to single out a flavonoid called resveratrol (trans-3,5,4′-trihydroxystilbene) as the most likely substance for the health benefits.

The whole world was buzzing in 2006 when Nature released an article (Resveratrol improves health and survival of mice on a high-calorie diet. Nature. 2006 Nov 16;444(7117):337-42.) that demonstrated a clear relationship between resveratrol and health benefits. The study showed that mice given high amounts of resveratrol lived long lives despite high calorie diets. Everyone in the world read the study as “drinking red wine equals immortality”.

Unfortunately the mice were not drinking red wine in their water bottle. Rafael de Cabo of the National Institute on Aging states: “We have not given the mice red wine—we gave them a purified compound. We’re trying to address resveratrol itself. We don’t know what will happen if the compound is mixed in an alcoholic beverage, which has many other compounds.” The mice were given very concentrated amounts of resveratrol, 24 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. To match this amount in wine, a person would need to drink 750 to 1,500 bottles of red wine a day. Drinking large amounts of alcohol is always bad for your body, but 10 bottles a day would destroy you quicker than Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas. There is no chance a person could drink that much wine.

Many supplement makers are selling resveratrol in a pill form. They claim it contains the same amount found in 5-10 glasses of red wine, however these supplements are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. These have been on the market long before the landmark study came out. The problem with the supplement is 95% of the resveratrol is destroyed by our digestive system before it enters circulation. Even if it could make it to the bloodstream, 5-10 glasses is far short of the 750 bottles required.

There is hope though. There are no studies that can prove a cause-and-effect relationship between alcohol and longevity. Such a study may not be possible. However, there might be some benefit to long term moderate consumption. There are no published studies showing the benefits, but we “still have Paris”. The French Paradox does still stand, even as anecdotal evidence.

Red Wine Helps the Body

Are there any other benefits to drinking? Researchers Klatsky and Friedman conducted a study in Northern California that followed 128,934 adults from 1978-1990 and found that people who had one or two alcoholic drinks per day had a 32% lower risk of dying from Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) than nondrinkers. The reason is that one drink a day for women, or two drinks for men raise the levels of good (HDL) cholesterol.

Red grapes contain resveratrol, but will it help you live longer?

Red wine is assumed to be even better with its contribution of antioxidants. Oxidizing is “rusting”. Your heart, veins, kidneys, etc are all exposed to oxygen and oxidation. Antioxidants preserve your internal “plumbing” by preventing “rusting”. Red wine is full of antioxidants, which help your internal systems.

Red wine can even be good for the brain. A study of 1,709 older people in Copenhagen found that “occasional” red wine drinkers were 50 per cent less likely to develop dementia, including Alzheimer’s. “It could mean that substances in wine reduce the occurrence of dementia,” concluded Dr Thomas Truelsen in The Quarterly Review of Alcohol Research.

Again it sounds like red wine is the cure for everything! Everyone should start drinking large amounts of red wine. The reality is that these numbers are based on the one or two drink rule. One serving of wine is defined as 5 ounces. Any more than the two drink limit, and your health benefits from the alcohol diminish.

Excessive alcohol consumption has many downsides beyond the next day hangover. Larger amounts of alcohol are shown to cause raised blood pressure, potential damage to the heart, liver, kidneys and brain. Overconsumption of alcohol can also cause impotence and infertility. Large amounts of alcohol will also cause you to gain weight from the higher caloric intake (although some studies have shown small amounts may actually have the reverse effect). A common myth about wine is that it will not give you a “beer gut”. One glass of wine has about 130 calories. One 12 ounce beer has about 150 calories. Sweeter wines or higher alcoholic beverages contain even more calories. Ounce to ounce, wine has far more calories than beer. Larger amounts of wine mean more calories, and a “wine gut”. Like resveratrol, check the dosage before you assume the health benefits.

Alcohol and Cancer

And now for some really bad news. Despite all the ‘possible’ health benefits from alcohol, scientists demonstrated a model for how alcohol stimulates tumor growth in the January 15, 2005 issue of Cancer. The American Institute for Cancer Research, Food, Nutrition and the Prevention of Cancer: a Global Perspective demonstrated links between alcohol consumption and an increased risk of cancer in the mouth, pharynx, larynx, and esophagus. If you smoke, the risks are even higher. The International Journal of Cancer linked alcohol consumption to an increased risk of colon cancer. The study even suggested that one drink a day could put you at risk.

So does red wine make you live longer?

When you hear a study claiming immortality, check the fine print and look at it with a skeptical eye. So do you stop drinking? Well you should always moderate your alcohol consumption, but the jury is still out. Happier people tend to live longer, and what makes you happier than a very good glass of wine? Raise a glass, toast “to our health”, and hope for the best. After all, isn’t healthy just a slower way of dying?

Does organic alcohol reduce hangovers?

DJ Spiess — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 03:00:19 +0000

I’m never surprised the claims organics make for alcohol and food in general. Any day I suspect someone will claim organics cure cancer and cause world peace. In the case of a NY Daily News article , the author Sean Evans claims if you drink organic alcohol your hangover will be significantly reduced. Here’s what is wrong with his claim.

Will organic alcohol reduce your hangovers? Probably not.

What causes hangovers

Hangovers are caused by dehydration, the breakdown of ethanol, and natural by-products from the fermentation of the beverage.

Ethanol dehydrates your body. When you drink a lot, you tend to urinate a lot. The removal of water from your system causes headaches, nausea, and makes you tired. The only possible way organic alcohol could have less of a dehydrating effect would be if it had less ethanol. The author claimed he matched the alcohol content for his drinks in his experiment, so there should be no difference in the effect.

The source of ethanol (organic or non-organic) will not affect how your body breaks down the alcohol. You body breaks down the ethanol into acetaldehyde and then into acetic acid. If your body can’t keep up, you can get too much acetaldehyde (ethanal) in your system. Acetaldehyde is mildly toxic and adds to your hangover.

The last possible cause for hangovers is probably the one cause “organic nuts” will point to as the difference. Fusel alcohols and congeners can contribute hangovers. In both cases, the type of beverage and the fermentation conditions will determine the amounts of these substances. Fusel alcohols usually occur in beverages which are fermented at higher temperatures. Congeners are the flavor, and if your alcohol has flavor your alcohol has congeners. Since it is difficult to isolate which substances are contributing to your hangover, it is more likely the ethanol is putting the hurt on you the next morning. Fusel alcohols and congeners will occur equally in organic and inorganic beverages.

In all of the above cases, organic and inorganic beverages will have the same effect. If Evans understood how hangovers occur, he probably would not have made his claim organic alcohols are better for hangovers.

The amount of alcohol consumed and the rate of consumption will have the greatest affect on your next morning
Organic alcohols and non-organic alcohols are produced the from the same biological process
Dehydration is one of the most significant causes of hangovers

Is organic better tasting?

I have some doubts about this claim as well. The article claims the test involved similar alcohol contents for the drinks, but doesn’t really say if the quality level is the same. Anyone who has sampled cheap tequila and expensive tequila can tell you there is a huge difference in flavor, even if the alcohol content is the same. Evans does mention he spent much less money on the inorganic drinks, so maybe he needs to drink similar quality beverages. I’d like to see the list of what the author claimed were comparable liquors.

Another problem: taste is subjective. Researchers have shown a more expensive labeled wine will taste better to the consumer than a cheaper labeled wine, even if both wines are exactly the same. Evans knows the organic beverages are more expensive, and the brain can make you believe expensive is better.

An expensive bottle of wine will taste better than an cheap bottle, even if it is the same wine
The alcohol content alone does not determine the quality of the beverage

Anecdotal evidence and bad science

Another problem with his article is his experiment is based on anecdotal evidence. Evans has two trials tested once (also known as a sample size of one) and comes to a silly conclusion. To really make the test fair, he should have tested multiple times to see if the results can be completed. I’m not sure how his head or liver would have held performing the experiment 100 times, but you need to reproduce the test repeatedly for the results to be valid.

Hangovers can last multiple days; one insane drunk had a 30-day hangover . The order he tested is also suspect. He tested the regular alcohol 2 days after going on a bender with the organic alcohol. Again to be fair, he should have repeated the experiment at least a week later in the reverse order.

Evans should not know in advance which alcohols he is consuming. All of the alcohols should be served in a blind test. Knowing which alcohols (organic or inorganic) in advance biases his test. Then again, the whole experiment started with a biased hypothesis.

I’m sure a truly scientific test was not what Evans intended when he set out on his experiment (I’m sure it was just for fun, and to con the newspaper into paying for two nights of drinking), but an entire article claiming pure silliness cannot go unchallenged.

Scientific tests should be repeatable and unbiased
Tests should be conducted blind, the tester should not know which alcohol was which

Mission Impossible: Getting drunk on beer

DJ Spiess — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 22:22:58 +0000

A study by Dr. Leon A. Greensburg, professor of physiology at Yale University, proves with numbers it is impossible to get drunk on beer. His point is the stomach cannot hold enough alcohol to possibly become intoxicated. He’s a professor at Yale with the numbers to back his claim; we have to take him at his word right?

A new definition of intoxication

The good Dr. Greensburg states people will only exhibit abnormal behavior if their blood alcohol content is above 0.15 percent. This number is higher than most state legal limits. Most states will consider you under the influence if your blood alcohol content is somewhere between 0.05-0.08 percent. You are intoxicated if your blood alcohol content is above 0.10 percent. At 0.15 percent, you are loaded.

0.08 is usually considered “under the influence”

What is the doctor drinking?

The next problem with this study is the Greensburg’s choice of beer. He must be shopping at the grocery store for his beer (in Colorado supermarkets cannot sell beer over 3.2% ABV). He states the average beer content in America is 3.7%. In order for your blood alcohol content to be 0.15 percent, you would need 2.5 quarts of the 3.7% beer in your stomach. The reason he believes you cannot get intoxicated is because the stomach only holds 1.5 to 2 quarts. Your stomach cannot hold the required amount of beer to become intoxicated.

Of course the beer alcohol content chosen is key to his thesis. There are very few beers with an alcohol content this low unless you live in a weird place like Colorado where they sale 3.2% ABV beer in grocery stores. Most beers are between 5 and 6 percent alcohol by volume.

Try this experiment with Avery beers, and you will get a very different result
Coors Light and Bud Light are both 4.2% ABV. A six-pack of these low alcohol beers will give you a BAC of 0.112 in one hour.
Most beers are 5% ABV or higher. A six-pack of Fat Tire will give you a BAC of 0.146.

How many beers of normal strength would you need to consume to get drunk?

Ever been to a kegger?

Further more he states the body destroys or eliminates beer at 1/3 quarts per hour. That is an interesting claim I haven’t heard before. Alcohol is absorbed much quicker into your system than the rest of the beer. Usually you eliminate or metabolize 5-10% of the consumed alcohol in an hour. You might eliminate 1/3 quarts of something, but most of the alcohol is staying inside you.

According to Dr. Greensburg, a person would need to drink more than three quarts of the beer within one hour. He says this amount was “physiologically unnatural”.

“Unnatural”? I seriously have a hard time believing this professor spent any time on a college campus. Ever hear of the beer bong? Beer pong? (Hey! That rhymes!) Andre the Giant was reported to have 119 beers in six hours. That is a beer every three minutes. While most average sized men cannot match this pace, you’d be surprised how much you can stuff into a stomach.

The study assumes the expelled liquid contains the same ABV content
You can drink 6 beers in an hour

When was this study again?

Here is the clincher. This study happened back in 1955. Why on earth are people reporting it now? The legal limit back in 1955 was 0.15 percent, which is probably why he chose the number as “intoxicated”.

You can try to claim “I only had 6 beers” in court, but the judge isn’t likely to be lenient. The current legal limit is 0.10 for legal intoxication. Drinking some where between three and four Fat Tire beers will put you “under the influence” and five will put you well over the legal limit.

Next time you read a study claiming something too good to be true, you might want to read it closer.

Passing a breathalyzer after 12 beers

DJ Spiess — Fri, 23 May 2008 15:56:37 +0000

If I’m ever in a position where I want to consume many beers (more than 2), I’ve already established driving is completely out. I have arranged for transportation from a designated driver or mass transit. I haven’t considered drinking 12 beers since college, and I’m not sure I could even drink 12 back then. After 6 beers I start losing the horizon. I can only imagine what prompted someone to perform this search.

Anyways, it sounds like fun so let’s figure out the answer.

How does the breathalyzer work?

Alcohol has two exit paths out of your body, three if you can’t hold your liquor. You either metabolize the alcohol or you excrete it in some fashion (not counting sickness). About 5% to 10% of the alcohol you consume exits your body via breath, sweat, and piss. Since you will breathe out a certain percentage of your pub crawl, you can measure the amount of alcohol exiting your mouth into a breathalyzer. Once you have measured the amount of alcohol you are breathing out, you can calculate how much alcohol is still in your system. This is how breathalyzers work.

All alcohol is quicker, not just liquor

If 10% exits the system, simple math states 90% of the alcohol is left in your body. As you can see from these percentages, peeing often will not really help you. The reason is your body absorbs alcohol quickly, must faster than food. Alcohol will take the express route through your stomach and into your blood stream. About 20% of alcohol consumed is absorbed immediately in an empty stomach. This alcohol can reach your brain in about a minute. That’s why a shot will “hit you”.

Can a breathalyzer be fooled?

Breaking down the alcohol

Your liver metabolizes the alcohol using an enzyme. I won’t geek out on you too much by describing how the enzymes work, but the rate the enzymes can break down the alcohol is dependent on the amount of the enzymes in your body. If your body contains little amounts of the enzymes it will take longer, however, the amount of enzymes contained in most people does not vary wildly from the average.

The rate your body breaks down the alcohol is a rate of 20 to 30 milligrams of alcohol per deciliter of blood, per hour. This amount works out to be about 0.015 blood alcohol content (BAC) “points” per hour.

Some people suggest your body breaks down about one drink per hour, but I say it really depends on what you are drinking. For this exercise, we’ll assume drinks are equal. In any event, if your BAC is 0.150 it will take 10 hours (0.150 divided by 0.015) before the alcohol is completely out of your system.

How long after 12 beers can you pass a breathalyzer?

From the original question posed, we will assume you drank 12 beers. It would be dangerous and difficult to consume 12 beers in one hour. 12 beers in one hour could result in death; or just a trip to the emergency room if you are lucky. We’ll assume you are not pounding the beers, and estimate you are consuming 3 beers an hour. This would be 12 beers in 4 hours.

If you weigh 170 lbs and you drink 12 beers, your BAC will be around 0.265. That’s high enough to make you pass out, and be potentially life threatening. Of course we have to subtract 4 hours of your body excreting and metabolizing the alcohol. Four hours times 0.015 equals 0.060. Your resulting BAC will be 0.205.

Starting from this BAC, your body needs almost 14 hours to completely metabolize the alcohol. Of course to pass the breathalyzer in all 50 states, your BAC needs to be under 0.04. A 0.04 will not get you a DWI (driving while intoxicated), but you can be charged with a DUI (driving under the influence). To legally pass the breathalyzer after 12 beers in three hours, you need a little over 11 hours.

I’m in a hurry, can you speed things up?

How can you speed this up, you ask? You can’t. The rate of alcohol metabolism is dependent on enzymes breaking down the alcohol. Coffee, food, exercise, water, or prayer will not accelerate the process.

Consuming food or water while drinking will slow the absorption of alcohol into your blood stream, but it will not change the amount of alcohol your body needs to process. It is helpful though, since it slows the rate at which the alcohol enters your blood and thus impairs you.

696 very good reasons why we should lower the drinking age

DJ Spiess — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 01:17:05 +0000

I missed out on the grandfather date for legally drinking 3.2% beer in Colorado by a little over a year. It was weird having friends who could legally buy alcohol who were under 21 years of age. I always felt it was unfair I could not buy alcohol, just because I was a bit younger. You can hunt, vote, marry, live on your own, purchase porn (or even perform), have sex, have abortions, get a credit card, enter into legally binding agreements, hold public office, be executed, get sued, own a business, employ others, and even go to war and die for your country. You just can’t buy a beer.

The National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 required every state in America to legislate and enforce 21 years of age as the minimum age to possess and consume alcohol. The Federal Aid Highway Act takes 10% of highway funds from every state which does not set the minimum age at 21. Fair or not, the legal drinking age in the United States is 21.

What’s Changed?

These laws have been in effect for more than two decades, but what has the change accomplished? Proponents for the laws will point out alcohol related deaths have decreased since the law went into effect. This is true; however, all alcohol related deaths have decreased for almost all ages. Tougher DUI laws and drunk-driving education, better cars equipped with airbags, and other alcohol awareness programs have reduced the number of alcohol related fatalities in all age categories except in one notable category, 21 to 24. It appears the law just raised the ages of those killed.

Some might argue a lower drinking age will result in higher rates of drinking as an adult. There is no research to demonstrate this. Research actually shows the desire to drink alcohol after 21 wanes with each year.

No one should ever drink and drive, but 18 is the wrong solution

Research also shows underage drinkers are more likely to desire spirits over beer and wine. This is most likely because spirits give “more bang for the buck”. A bottle of vodka is easier to sneak around or mix with orange juice than a 6-pack of beer. You can get alcohol poisoning from beer, but it is much more difficult. I would rather let them have the beer. Beer becomes the beverage of choice quickly after the age of 21.

Another problem with the higher drinking age is kids go to college and are exposed to the “forbidden fruit” with little to no guidance. Without the education and experience they might have learned from their family, they are more prone to over-indulgence. This puts them at greater risk, because they know drinking is illegal. “They get sick, they get scared and they get into trouble and they can’t call because they know it’s illegal,” says Vermont Senator Hinda Miller.

Bad choices, not alcohol, are to blame

The real problem is how alcohol is viewed in America. In countries where alcohol abuse is not a problem, alcohol is seen as neutral. Other cultures teach their youth how to drink in the safe environment of the home. In these countries, the legal drinking age is lower than America. Alcohol education needs to come from the family, not a mandate from the government.

So what age do you consider someone an adult? America is a free country where adults are allowed to make their own choices, for better or worse – but not minors. An 18-year-old is considered adult enough to vote for people to lead our country, but not buy a beer. Is an 18-year-old an adult or not?

How old to fire a gun?!?

A 12-year-old can carry a gun and hunt and kill game. Am I the only person who finds this scary? I’m not advocating a 12-year-old be allowed to purchase a beer, but it is strange our country thinks a gun is safer than a beer in the hands of a child. The reality is the child has the gun under adult supervision and is required to take training before the child is granted a license. Why is the same approach not applied to drinking?

Who can better teach a child about alcohol than their parents? The government thinks it is better for people to start from scratch at 21. It is illegal in many states for a parent to provide their child an alcoholic beverage. Personally I think I am a much better choice to teach my child about alcohol. No wonder 21-year-olds do not know how to drink – but with our laws they have nine years of practice with a gun!

No beer, but here hold this gun!

And they are in luck! We have a great job for those who know how to use a gun. I cannot believe we allow young men and women to fight in wars, but we don’t allow them to drink. I cannot describe how offensive I find this contradiction of “adulthood”. When I was a teenager I got into this argument with my father. His response at the time, “we don’t go to war that often”. America went to war in the first Gulf War two years later.

An 18-year-old is old enough to give their life for our country, but not old enough to buy a beer. As of date of writing this article, 696 soldiers have died in Iraq and were not old enough to buy a beer. Here are 696 very good reasons why we should lower the drinking age right now to 18. These men and women did die for our country, but still were never trusted with a beer.

696 reasons to lower the drinking age to 18

Ruben Estrella-Soto	18	Army Private
Andrew Julian Aviles	18	Marine Lance Corporal
David Evans Jr.	18	Army Private
Cory Ryan Geurin	18	Marine Lance Corporal
Daniel R. Parker	18	Army Private 1st Class
Charles M. Sims	18	Army Private 1st Class
Michael G. Mihalakis	18	Army National Guard Specialist
Matthew G. Milczark	18	Marine Private 1st Class
Dustin M. Sekula	18	Marine Private 1st Class
Marcus M. Cherry	18	Marine Lance Corporal
Kyle D. Crowley	18	Marine Lance Corporal
Ryan M. Jerabek	18	Marine Private 1st Class
Anthony P. Roberts	18	Marine Lance Corporal
Bradley G. Kritzer	18	Army Private 1st Class
Leslie D. Jackson	18	Army Private 1st Class
Sam W. Huff	18	Army Private 1st Class
Christopher R. Dixon	18	Marine Reserve Private 1st Class
Jonathan R. Flores	18	Marine Lance Corporal
Christopher R. Kilpatrick	18	Army Private 1st Class
Sergio H. Escobar	18	Marine Lance Corporal
Peter D. Wagler	18	Army Private 1st Class
Stephen P. Snowberger III	18	Army Private 1st Class
Jeremy Z. Long	18	Marine Lance Corporal
Colin Joseph Wolfe	18	Marine Private 1st Class
Jeremy R. Shank	18	Army Private 1st Class
Jason Franco	18	Marine Private 1st Class
Eric R. Sieger	18	Army Specialist
Matthew T. Zeimer	18	Army Private
Steven J. Walberg	18	Army Private 1st Class
Le Ron A. Wilson	18	Army Private 1st Class
Christopher D. Kube	18	Army Private 1st Class
Jeremy S. Bohannon	18	Army Private
Nathan Z. Thacker	18	Army Private
Brandon Scott Tobler	19	Army Reserve Specialist
Brandon Ulysses Sloan	19	Army Private
Nolen Ryan Hutchings	19	Marine Private
Gregory Paul Sanders	19	Army Specialist
Diego Fernando Rincon	19	Army Private 1st Class
Christian Daniel Gurtner	19	Marine Private 1st Class
Devon Demilo Jones	19	Army Private
Gregory Paul Huxley Jr.	19	Army Private 1st Class
Anthony Scott Miller	19	Army Private 1st Class
Alan Dinh Lam	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Jose F. Gonzalez Rodriguez	19	Marine Private 1st Class
Nicholas Brian Kleiboeker	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Kenneth A. Nalley	19	Army Private
Jesse M. Halling	19	Army Private
Ryan R. Cox	19	Marine Private 1st Class
Robert L. Frantz	19	Army Private
Jonathan M. Cheatham	19	Army Reserve Private 1st Class
Duane E. Longstreth	19	Army Private 1st Class
Vorn J. Mack	19	Army Private 1st Class
Pablo Manzano	19	Army Private 1st Class
Benjamin L. Freeman	19	Army Private
Stephen E. Wyatt	19	Army Private 1st Class
Paul J. Bueche	19	Army National Guard Private 1st Class
Steven Acosta	19	Army Private 1st Class
Rachel K. Bosveld	19	Army Private 1st Class
Joey D. Whitener	19	Army Private 1st Class
Jason G. Wright	19	Army Private 1st Class
Jeffrey F. Braun	19	Army Private 1st Class
Nathan W. Nakis	19	Army National Guard Specialist
Luis A. Moreno	19	Army Private 1st Class
Holly J. McGeogh	19	Army Private 1st Class
William C. Ramirez	19	Army Private 1st Class
Bryan N. Spry	19	Army Private
Nichole M. Frye	19	Army Reserve Private 1st Class
Dustin L. Kreider	19	Army Private
William R. Strange	19	Army Private 1st Class
Geoffrey S. Morris	19	Marine Private 1st Class
Shane Lee Goldman	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Moises A. Langhorst	19	Marine Private 1st Class
Christopher R. Cobb	19	Marine Private 1st Class
Travis J. Layfield	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Christopher D. Mabry	19	Marine Private 1st Class
Chance R. Phelps	19	Marine Private 1st Class
Torrey L. Gray	19	Marine Lance Corporal
James E. Marshall	19	Army Specialist
Brian K. Cutter	19	Marine Private 1st Class
Brandon C. Sturdy	19	Marine Private 1st Class
Michael A. Mora	19	Army Private 1st Class
Daniel Paul Unger	19	Army National Guard Private 1st Class
Kyle W. Codner	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Cody S. Calavan	19	Marine Private 1st Class
Bradli N. Coleman	19	Army Private
Sean Horn	19	Marine Private 1st Class
William River Emanuel IV	19	Army Specialist
Harry N. Shondee Jr.	19	Army Private 1st Class
Joseph L. Nice	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Jonathan W. Collins	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Fernando B. Hannon	19	Marine Private 1st Class
Seth Huston	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Charles L. Neeley	19	Army Reserve Specialist
Omead H. Razani	19	Army Specialist
Luis A. Perez	19	Army Reserve Private 1st Class
Nicholas Perez	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Tomas Garces	19	Army National Guard Specialist
David Paul Burridge	19	Marine Private 1st Class
Jason L. Sparks	19	Army Private 1st Class
Dominic C. Brown	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Mathew D. Puckett	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Andrew Halverson	19	Marine Private 1st Class
Aaron J. Rusin	19	Army Private 1st Class
Oscar A. Martinez	19	Marine Private 1st Class
Victor A. Gonzalez	19	Marine Lance Corporal
David L. Waters	19	Army Private
Richard Patrick Slocum	19	Marine Lance Corporal
John Lukac	19	Marine Private 1st Class
Andrew G. Riedel	19	Marine Private 1st Class
Nicholas D. Larson	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Abraham Simpson	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Nathan R. Wood	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Nicholas H. Anderson	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Cole W. Larsen	19	Army Private 1st Class
Justin D. McLeese	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Travis R. Desiato	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Bradley L. Parker	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Phillip G. West	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Jordan D. Winkler	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Joshua E. Lucero	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Joshua A. Ramsey	19	Army Private 1st Class
Oscar Sanchez	19	Army Private 1st Class
Brian P. Parrello	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Gunnar D. Becker	19	Army Private 1st Class
Jesus Fonseca	19	Army Private 1st Class
Jason C. Redifer	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Sean P. Maher	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Richard C. Clifton	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Richard A. Perez Jr.	19	Marine Reserve Lance Corporal
Landon S. Giles	19	Army Private
Samuel S. Lee	19	Army Private 1st Class
Tenzin Dengkhim	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Casey M. LaWare	19	Army Private 1st Class
Charles S. Cooper Jr.	19	Army Private
Stephen P. Baldwyn	19	Marine Private 1st Class
Wesley R. Riggs	19	Army Private 1st Class
Carrie L. French	19	Army National Guard Corporal
Chad B. Maynard	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Adam J. Crumpler	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Lavena L. Johnson	19	Army Private
Ramon A. Villatoro Jr.	19	Army Private 1st Class
Christopher Jenkins Dyer	19	Marine Reserve Lance Corporal
Nils George Thompson	19	Army Private 1st Class
Nathaniel E. “Nate” Detample	19	Army National Guard Private 1st Class
Joshua P. Dingler	19	Army National Guard Specialist
Ramon Romero	19	Marine Private 1st Class
Elijah M. Ortega	19	Marine Private
Oliver J. Brown	19	Army National Guard Private 1st Class
Roberto C. Baez	19	Army Private 1st Class
Andrew D. Bedard	19	Marine Private 1st Class
Shayne M. Cabino	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Jason L. Frye	19	Marine Private 1st Class
Daniel Scott R. Bubb	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Kenneth J. Butler	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Christopher T. Monroe	19	Army Reserve Specialist
Mario A. Reyes	19	Army Private 1st Class
Jeremy P. Tamburello	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Daniel Freeman Swaim	19	Marine Lance Corporal
John A. “JT” Lucente	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Anthony Alexander “Alex” Gaunky	19	Army Private 1st Class
Adam Wade Kaiser	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Andrew G. Patten	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Brian A. Wright	19	Army National Guard Specialist
Jeriad P. Jacobs	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Jonathan Kyle Price	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Javier Chavez Jr.	19	Marine Private 1st Class
Amy A. Duerksen	19	Army Private 1st Class
Angelo A. Zawaydeh	19	Army Private 1st Class
Jeremy W. Ehle	19	Army Private 1st Class
Chase A. Edwards	19	Marine Private 1st Class
Jody W. Missildine	19	Army Private
Ryan G. Winslow	19	Marine Private 1st Class
Michael E. Bouthot	19	Army Private
Travis C. Zimmerman	19	Army Private
Michael L. Ford	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Christopher M. Eckhardt	19	Army Private 1st Class
Leon Deraps	19	Marine Lance Corporal
David N. Crombie	19	Army Private 1st Class
Brent Zoucha	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Devon J. Gibbons	19	Army Private 1st Class
Ryan. J. Clark	19	Army Corporal
Kyle Miller	19	Army National Guard Specialist
Anthony E. Butterfield	19	Marine Lance Corporal
James J. Arellano	19	Army Private 1st Class
Dan Dolan	19	Army Private 1st Class
Nicholas A. Madaras	19	Army Private 1st Class
Philip A. Johnson	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Anthony P. Seig	19	Army Private 1st Class
Ryan A. Miller	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Christopher T. Blaney	19	Army Private 1st Class
Edward M. Garvin	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Shane R. Austin	19	Army Private 1st Class
Stephen Bicknell	19	Army Private 1st Class
Donald S. Brown	19	Marine Private 1st Class
Ryan T. McCaughn	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Kristopher C. Warren	19	Marine Reserve Lance Corporal
Heath Warner	19	Marine Private 1st Class
Reece D. Moreno	19	Army Private
Jesse D. Tillery	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Ross A. McGinnis	19	Army Private
Joe L. Baines	19	Army Private 1st Class
Nick J. Palmer	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Seth M. Stanton	19	Army Private 1st Class
Fernando S. Tamayo	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Andrew H. Nelson	19	Army Private 1st Class
Ryan R. Berg	19	Army Private 1st Class
Collin R. Schockmel	19	Army Specialist
Andrew G. Matus	19	Marine Lance Corporal
David T. Toomalatai	19	Army Private 1st Class
Adam Q. Emul	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Tarryl B. Hill	19	Marine Reserve Private 1st Class
Daniel T. Morris	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Kelly D. Youngblood	19	Army Private
Matthew C. Bowe	19	Army Private 1st Class
Adare W. Cleveland	19	Army Private 1st Class
Louis G. Kim	19	Army Specialist
Cory C. Kosters	19	Army Private 1st Class
Jonathan K. Smith	19	Army Specialist
Raymond J. Holzhauer	19	Marine Lance Corporal
Miguel A. Marcial III	19	Marine Private 1st Class
Daniel A. Fuentes	19	Army Private 1st Class
Damian Lopez Rodriguez	19	Army Private
John G. Borbonus	19	Army Private 1st Class
Richard P. Langenbrunner	19	Army Private 1st Class
Michael J. Slater	19	Army Private
Jeffrey A. Avery	19	Army Private 1st Class
Jerry R. King	19	Army Specialist
Brian A. Botello	19	Army Private 1st Class
Katie M. Soenksen	19	Army Private 1st Class
Michael A. Pursel	19	Army Corporal
Daniel Courneya	19	Army Private 1st Class
Aaron D. Gautier	19	Army Private 1st Class
Joshua G. Romero	19	Army Specialist
Alexander R. Varela	19	Army Private 1st Class
Robert A. Worthington	19	Army Private 1st Class
Clinton C. Blodgett	19	Army Specialist
Anthony D. Hebert	19	Army Private 1st Class
Dustin L. Workman II	19	Army Specialist
James J. Harrelson	19	Army Private 1st Class
Ron J. Joshua Jr.	19	Army Private 1st Class
Zachary Clouser	19	Army Specialist
Daniel A. Leckel	19	Army Specialist
Jaime Rodriguez Jr.	19	Army Specialist
Braden J. Long	19	Army Specialist
Donald M. Young	19	Army Specialist
Travis M. Virgadamo	19	Army Specialist
Dane R. Balcon	19	Army Private 1st Class
Marisol Heredia	19	Army Specialist
Sammie E. Phillips	19	Army National Guard Private 1st Class
Christian M. Neff	19	Army Private 1st Class
Shayna Ann Schnell	19	Navy Seaman Apprentice
Genesia Mattril Gresham	19	Navy Seaman
Cody M. Carver	19	Army Private
Daren A. Smith	19	Army Private
Juctin R. P. McDaniel	19	Army Private 1st Class
Ivan E. Merlo	19	Army Private 1st Class
Duncan Charles Crookston	19	Army Private 1st Class
Jack T. Sweet	19	Army Private 1st Class
Micheal E. Phillips	19	Army Private 1st Class
William D. O

Winos have smaller brainos

DJ Spiess — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 22:50:41 +0000

If you drink wine to excess, it may be the worst choice for you. Researchers (psychiatrists) found a region of the brain in alcoholic wine drinkers was more damaged than the same region in alcoholics who prefer beer or spirits. This is the first known research that studied alcoholics with a beverage choice.

Do winos have smaller brainos? What do you think?

The hippocampus–not to be confused with much larger, and purpled hippopotamuses– shrinks more in wine drinkers with an alcohol dependency than other drinkers. The researchers reported in the medical journal Alcohol and Alcoholism the hippocampus is up to 10% smaller in wine alcoholic brains than normal brains

A smaller hippocampus will cause memory loss, navigation and spatial awareness problems (basically the same as drunkenness). The hippocampus is also the first area affected by Alzheimer’s. Women are more likely to drink wine than men, and according to the study, are also more likely to suffer the damaging brain effects.

The important information to take away from this research is over indulging to the point of alcoholism is bad. The situation is worse if you are a wino (perhaps, hence the term), and can cause lasting damage to your body. The people the researchers studied were not your wine with dinner crowd. These people were diagnosed alcoholics. So if you were planning to drink large amounts of wine to gain longevity, think again while you still can.

(Source: independent.co.uk )

The family friendly bar

DJ Spiess — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 20:44:32 +0000

If you’re heading to a Chuck E Cheese’s in Killeen, Texas, you might want to reconsider; the one thing that could help you survive a night at this place is not for sale. Mothers Against Drunk Driving and local patrons successfully stopped the local Chuck E Cheese’s from acquiring a liquor license to sell beer. The “concerned citizens” claimed selling beer would ruin the restaurant for children. Chuck E Cheese’s sells beer at more than 75% of their other locations; however, somehow this location in Texas would be harmed with a license.

The complaint by purists goes like this: beer is adult entertainment and has no place in a children’s restaurant. Pam Smith, of Harker Heights, started a petition to prevent the license to sell beer. Her argument was that alcohol should not be sold in a place “where a kid can be a kid”. These people do not want families around alcohol, because they feel alcohol should not be consumed around children. Keeping families out of establishments that sell alcohol discourages community, and actually encourages over-indulgence and the problems associated with drunkenness.

No Strollers Please

The blog-o-sphere lit up this week about a bar in New York that is banning strollers in what was normally considered a family-friendly neighborhood. Mothers would gather together for a social hour at the Union Hall Bar, but the owners now say the mothers are no longer welcome. They even posted a sign stating, “NO STROLLERS PLEASE”. Drinking patrons complained that crying babies were disturbing in a noisy bar, so the management evicted the moms.

Other bars in the neighborhood stepped up, like the Tea Lounge, to accommodate families. The Tea Lounge even offers sing-a-longs in the day for children. The bar is packed with local families, while the other bar caters to the drinking crowd.

There are kid friendly places, you just have to look around. Places with outdoor patios are good choices.

Even in my local neighborhood, which is predominately families with young children, the local tavern refuses to add children’s menu items. The tavern would rather shun their closest customers than cater to the families. Since the local watering hole is so unfriendly to families, many in the neighborhood resort to holding their own gathering at local parks and homes.

Why are alcohol and families separated?

Now that smoking bans are passed into law around the country, more and more families are showing up at the neighborhood pubs. For some, bar enthusiasts and alcohol protesters alike, this is an unwelcome change. The question has to be asked: why are the two, alcohol and families, separated in the United States? Pubs historically have been community centers, places for the whole family to gather and meet with other families. Before prohibition and the beer barons, pubs were family entertainment.

If the concern for children were real, you would want to encourage behavior that promoted a more responsible and family friendly attitude towards alcohol. Bringing families back into taverns would make the gatherings social affairs. It would also discourage binge drinking. Unfortunately, bars in America place the emphasis on drinking, not socializing.

Are they reducing DUIs or attacking alcohol?

With all the emphasis on reducing drunk driving and reducing binge drinking, you would think that MADD or other anti-alcohol organizations would encourage neighborhood pubs to be family friendly. If you have a neighborhood bar that encourages your whole family to attend, you are not likely to drive or over indulge.

Unfortunately these organizations encourage the demonization of drinkers, and promote abstinence over personal responsibility. Even MADD’s founder, Candy Lightner, stated “It has become far more neo-prohibitionist than I ever wanted or envisioned,” she says. “I didn’t start MADD to deal with alcohol. I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving.”

Bars are to blame too

The real reason families are unwelcome is bars want to sell as much alcohol as possible. Most responsible adults will not get intoxicated around their family, but when they are away from their children they tend to “cut loose”. Patrons would buy fewer drinks if the establishment were for families. Bars without families encourage binge drinking, and thus higher tabs. Bar owners want drunks for patrons, not families.

Ironically neo-prohibitionist groups are inadvertently supporting binge drinking. By keeping families out of taverns, only drunks are left to keep the bars in business.

Can beer give you a beer gut?

DJ Spiess — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 02:09:48 +0000

We have all seen the stereotype – fat beer guzzler, with a large protruding gut that would put Santa to shame. The beer gut is first called “the freshman 15” (or more) when you are in college. Later people call it for what it is, the beer gut. The question is, can beer really give you a beer gut?

Research shows it’s the calories, not the beer

In 2003, the Journal of Nutrition published a study to examine this very question. Scientists followed more than 2,300 drinkers and non-drinkers aged 35 to 79. They measured the body-mass index (BMI) and the abdominal height of each subject. The abdominal height is the distance from your spine to the top of your abdomen (how far your tummy sticks out).

Scientists at the University of New York at Buffalo found wine drinkers who had one glass a day tended to have the smallest gut, smaller than non-drinkers on average. The scientists did also note that the wine drinkers tended to exercise more. Beer drinkers had no more or less tummy fat than the non-drinkers on average. Spirit drinkers were the chunkiest of the group. Maybe we should start calling the beer gut the vodka gut.

Moderate drinkers have smaller stomachs

Researchers also found drinking affected the belly fat of drinkers who drank sporadically more than drinkers who drank regularly. Drinkers who drank 1 to 2 drinks per day generally had smaller guts than those who drank 1 to 2 drinks per week. The biggest surprise was frequent moderate drinkers had smaller stomachs than non-drinkers on average.

So beer does not give you a beer gut, and there is some evidence that moderate regular drinking actually helps your beer gut. Of course, if you are drinking heavy or large amounts of spirits all bets are off. Your best bet for the Super Bowl is to have a couple, but don’t go crazy – unless your team wins. You can always try again next year!

Wine Mouthwash

DJ Spiess — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 19:21:34 +0000

It seems almost silly at this point. Red wine seems to cure everything. Red wine has compounds linked to longevity , cancer cures, and a whole slew of other cures. Now a recently published study in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry finds that there are compounds in red wine that can fight tooth decay.

Is the next big thing wine mouthwash?

The problem with most mouthwashes is that that they kill beneficial bacteria and bad bacteria alike. Researchers from University of Rochester Medical Center and Cornell University found that the grape pomace (stuff left over after you press the grapes) reduces harmful mouth bacteria by 70 percent to 85 percent. They tested whole grape extract and grape pomace, but found that the pomace was most effective.

The compounds in the wine that retard the growth of harmful bacteria are known as polyphenols. The scientists believe the compound prevents the bacteria from producing enzymes necessary for glucan production. In short, they can’t reproduce.

The scientists are not recommending that we gargle with wine (oh well), but they do believe they can find the compound responsible and include it in a mouthwash. They also added that wine is acidic and would reduce tooth enamel.

Red wine compound found effective on humans

DJ Spiess — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 04:08:06 +0000

For those of you that are unfamiliar with this compound or research, this is the anti-aging cure-all compound based on resveratrol – the substance in red wine. Resveratrol triggers the SIRT1 gene, which helps regulate lifespan. Unfortunately the dosage for resveratrol is about 400 glasses of red wine a day. SRT501 is much more effective than resveratrol, but triggers the same gene.

Red wine grapes may hold the secret to living forever

Sirtris Pharmaceuticals tested SRT501 on 98 people with type 2 diabetes. One third took a 2.5 gram dose of the drug, one third took a 5 gram dose, and a third took a placebo. The drug was found to be safe in the initial trials, and improved glucose tolerance for the patients that took the drug. Larger trials have already started.

The anti-aging effects cannot be tested yet, but the drug seems to be effective for diabetes – typically an age-related disease. The drug may not be available until 2012, so we’ll have to stick with red wine until then.

Does white wine have sulfites?

DJ Spiess — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 04:24:57 +0000

Even white wine has sulfites

Unless the wine was treated with hydrogen peroxide (and thus ruined), the quick answer is yes.

All wines have sulfite in them. In fact, white wine usually has more sulfites than red wine. Sulfites are created naturally during the fermentation process. After a wine has fermented it usually contains somewhere between 2 and 10 parts per million (ppm).

White wines are typically sweeter than red wines. To stop the wine from fermenting the residual sugars, potassium metabisulfite is added to the wine to halt the fermentation. This is why white wines typically have more sulfites than red wines

Most wines have additional sulfite added to protect the wine. It doesn’t matter which country the wine is from, almost all wines have sulfites around 80 ppm. Only the United States and Australia are required to note that sulfites were added.

Here's a bottle of Asti, and yes it contains sulfites

Wine is a food product, and without sulfites wine would not last long. Organic wines without sulfite added have this problem, and do not last long on the shelves. Sulfites act as a preservative to protect the wine from molds, oxidation, and spoiling.

There is no scientific link between sulfites and headaches, although many blame sulfites to cause red wine headaches (RWH).

My 100 plus drinking buddies

DJ Spiess — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 16:37:26 +0000

When people learn you make your own beer or wine, their first thought is “How much do you drink?” This question is usually couched inside a condescending voice saying “You must be an alcoholic!” When they hear my answer, “a couple of beers a week” their reaction is usually shock. Where does all the alcohol I make go? In my case, it goes to my 100 plus drinking buddies.

The social neighborhood

My neighborhood, Bradburn Village, is unusual in that it is very social. It is a new urbanist neighborhood, where the design encourages interaction between neighbors. The design includes front porches, recessed sidewalks, several parks, and nearby businesses to increase walkability. These features also encourage the neighborhood to be much more social.

In a social community, sharing your beer is a great way to practice and get feedback

A neighborhood like this is perfect for the homebrewer. An average homebrew batch is usually 5 to 6 gallons, which makes about 40-48 pints of beer. Averaging one beer a night usually means that a batch will last more than a month. Maybe less than a month if there are two drinkers in the house. A 5 gallon keg of my beer might not last the full length of one park party.

At first a bunch of thirsty freeloaders might sound like a bad thing. It really isn’t. I am not interested in hoarding my beer. Homebrewing is a hobby that I get to share with my friends. It does mean that I get to drink less, but it also means I get to meet more people. We usually come out for park parties every Friday night during the summer months. This allows the neighborhood to come out and meet each other while the kids run around and play. Everyone gets to let loose a little after a long week, and everyone is close enough to walk back home. No one has to drive after a few beers.

What’s in it for me the homebrewer?

But why is this great for a homebrewer? I like many different styles but without my neighborhood, I couldn’t possibly try making every one. Since I go through several kegs of beer a month, I get experience making many different types of beer. I can get a feel for which recipes are worth making, which ones are easy or difficult, and which recipes I like.

I usually make the beer right outside my front porch. It encourages people to stop by and see how the beer is made. Since the neighborhood is still in development, I’m sure it attracts the interest of prospective homebuyers – for better or worse!

Heading to another park party with kegs

At each neighborhood party I also get honest immediate feedback on my beer – sometimes too honest. For example one lady approached me at our local Oktoberfest; we throw a final party to end the summer each September. She informed me that she did not like the Tripel (a Belgium style beer), because she liked beer with flavor not alcohol. When I asked her what beers she preferred, she replied “Coors”. You can’t please everyone.

Even without the feedback, I can tell how popular a beer is just by how fast the keg is drained dry. I have even encouraged several other people in the neighborhood to start homebrewing. This means I get to try even more different beers, and it creates a local homebrewing community. That is really what the beer is about, community.

Does sulfite cause red wine headaches?

DJ Spiess — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 04:20:36 +0000

Warning: Contains Sulfites

Every now and then someone tells me they don’t like red wine and prefer white wine because the sulfites in red wine gives them a headache – commonly known as the Red Wine Headache (RWH). The label “WARNING: Contains Sulfites” seems to justify their claim. The question is do the sulfites in red wine really cause headaches?

Good luck at finding wine with no sulfites. It's a natural by-product, so all wine has it.

Sulfites are used as a natural preservative in wine. The reason it is called a “natural” preservative is because sulfites are a natural byproduct of the fermentation process. More sulfite is often added by the winery as potassium metabisulfite. This added preservative allows the wine to age over many years; otherwise it would quickly turn to vinegar. Organic wines have this aging problem.

All red wine contains sulfites, even the ones labeled “no sulfite added”. So do all white wines – white wines have much more sulfite on average. All wines contain 40-80 mg/liter of sulfites on average. Organic wines contain less, but they still have sulfite in them. You cannot make wine without making sulfites. It does not matter which country the wine originates from. The US and Australia list sulfite warnings on their labels, but the Europeans are not required to do so. European wines still contain the same amount of sulfites.

Sulfites are also used in dried fruit; no one claims that they got a headache from a bag of dried apricots. Pancake syrup typically contains more sulfite than red wine. The human body also produces sulfites through normal biochemical processes, about 1000 mg per day.

Some studies have shown that some people can have strong reactions to sulfites. Slightly less than 1% of the population lacks an enzyme to break down the sulfites. In comparison, peanut allergies affect about 4% of the population.

Research doesn’t support RWH/Sulfite link

For these people the inability to break down sulfites can be a life threatening problem – much more serious than a headache. Symptoms typically include restricted breathing to varying degrees, especially in asthmatics prescribed steroids. Skin rashes, itching or nausea are rarer symptoms, but headaches are not typically a symptom of sulfite reactions. Despite the seriousness of some reactions, the FDA has reported only 19 sulfite related deaths since 1990. None of these deaths were related to red wine.

Researchers in Australia studied a group of people who were very sensitive to sulfites. The researchers gave these people a drink that contained 300 mg/liter of sulfites, much higher than the amount typically in red wine. Only 4 test subjects out of 24 showed an asthmatic response. None of the subjects responded adversely to drinks with 100 mg/liter. This study published in Thorax (2001 Oct; 56 (10):763-9), showed that “only a small number of wine sensitive asthmatic patients responded to a single dose challenge with sulfited wine under laboratory conditions. This may suggest that the role of sulphites [sic] and / or wine in triggering asthmatic responses has been overestimated.”

Even white wine has sulfites

Do we know what causes RWH?

This still does not answer the question about RWH. The fact is no current peer reviewed medical research links sulfites to headaches. This does not mean that red wine does not cause headaches for some people. There is research that shows that red wine does cause headaches for some, the culprit however is not the sulfites.

Most recent medical studies believe that prostaglandins, hormone-like substances, may be responsible for the production of some types of pain and inflammation and could be the culprit in RWH. Herbert Kaufman, M.D. and Dwight Starr, M.D. from Mt. Zion Hospital and Medical Center showed a significant decrease in headaches in subjects prone to RWH and given prostaglandin inhibitors.

If you are still in doubt, try eating a bag of dried orange apricots. These are heavily sulfited. If you don’t experience the very rare headache, or the much more common respiratory problems, you are not sensitive to sulfites. The best advice is to keep a journal of red wines that you try. Note which wines give you a headache, and which wines that have no effect. In the future, drink the red wines that do not give you a headache.

One last note, the headache you get from several wines the night before is called a hangover. Those can be avoided by not drinking as much!

Beers to your health!

DJ Spiess — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 03:57:25 +0000

Beer reduces kidney cancer

Researchers at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden found beer can reduce your risk for kidney cancer, and it isn’t a subtle reduction. Averaging one to two beers a day will reduce your risk for kidney cancer by a whopping 40%! 855 kidney cancer patients, and 1204 cancer free subjects were studied, according to the study published in the British Journal of Cancer. Researchers think it is the antioxidants and antimutagenics (a substance that can bond to cancer causing substances) present in alcoholic drinks are responsible for the health benefits.

There's a bit of health in every glass, in moderation

Beer reduces your risk of Alzheimer’s disease

In Spain, researchers found beer reduces your risk of Alzheimer’s disease. They think the silicon present in beer protects against the effects of aluminum on the brain. The study in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology reported “moderate beer consumption… could perhaps be taken into account as a component of the dietary habits of the population.” The study was on mice given aluminum nitrate in their water. They separated the mice into 4 groups, mice with beer, mice with silicic acid in water, mice with water, and a fourth group that was not given aluminum nitrate at all. The mice with beer or silicic acid fared the best, having the least amount of aluminum in their blood. It is not certain if the benefits extend to humans.

Of course, as usual, scientists state that the effects are only observed with moderate consumption. The benefits drop off significantly after your second pint. So here’s to your health!

How to taste wine like a pro

DJ Spiess — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 16:21:13 +0000

One of the most intimidating aspects of wine drinking is the mystique about tasting wines. There is a barrier of knowledge that scares off most people. The movie Sideways explained a bit of the ritual, but obscured the information by making the character seem pretentious while he was explaining it. You might see a knowlegeable person tasting the wine, but what are they really doing? And more importantly, why?

The Cork

When you are presented the cork after opening a bottle of wine, you are checking to make sure the wine is not “corked”. A corked wine contains trichloroanisole (2,4,6-trichloroanisole – TCA) created by a naturally-occurring airborne fungi, and will smell of moldy newspaper. It can sometimes come from other sources such as a barrel, but most likely will come from the cork itself. Examine the cork to make sure it is clear of mold. It should be stained a bit (if from a red wine), spongy (not dry and crumbly), and have no off-odors. A dry cork will not necesarrily be a sign of a bad wine, but it does mean that the wine was not stored properly.

A synthetic cork will have none of the above problems, but it will also have no smell. If you smell the synthetic cork, you will not gain any useful information. A synthetic cork is not the sign of an inferior wine; many quality wineries are using synthetic corks. A synthetic cork is more likely the sign of a winery that is tired of taking back corked wine. Some people consider a synthetic cork to be less “romantic”, but nothing will kill the mood quicker than a corked wine. Some wineries are starting to use fun colored synthetic corks.

Look at the wine

The first thing you will do when you receive a glass of wine is look at the wine. When you look at the wine, you are inspecting the color and clarity. A cloudy wine is usually a wine that hasn’t settled yet. The color will tell you many interesting things about the wine. Just from the color, you can get a feel for the age and quality of the wine.

For example, a white wine is never “white”. A young white wine might have a slightly pale yellow-green tint to it. A brown tint will indicate that the white wine has oxidized, and most likely will not be enjoyable. A straw color will indicate that the wine is a moderate age, while a gold color will be much more aged. Chardonnays are often yellow-brown because they have been stored in oak barrels, rather than stainless steel tanks.

A few tips can have you tasting wine like a pro!

You can determine much information from red wines too. Purple-red is the color of a young red wine, while dark brown colors will indicate that the wine is past its prime. Ruby is typical of wines that have reached their peak, and are at the prime drinking age. Older red wines are usually lighter than their younger counterparts.

Swirl the wine

Swirling the wine is probably one of the most confusing actions observed by a wine novice. When you swirl the wine, you are trying to get more air into the wine. The wine coats the outside of the glass, and allows the aromas of the wine to release. Swirling the wine in the glass prepares the wine aromas for your next test, smelling the wine.

Smell the wine

When you are smelling the wine you are first checking to see if there are any “off” scents. This is your second chance to determine if the wine is corked before tasting it. The wine will smell of moldy cardboard if it is corked. Smelling the wine is also a way to enjoy the wine, and gives you an opprotunity to explore the wine before tasting it. You can descern many more aromas than tastes. See what aromas you can name for each wine that you taste. You might smell flowers, apples, citrus, grapefruit, butter or more.

Taste the wine

When you take a sip of wine, swish it around your mouth. This gives the wine an opprotunity to touch all of your tastebuds. There are no “regions” of your tounge that corospond to different tastes, the “tounge map” is a myth with no scientific basis. Each tastebud contains 50-100 receptors for each taste (sour, sweet, etc…). Swishing the wine around your mouth gives you more information about the wine than just the tip of your tounge. Some wines might taste of cherries, while others might give you flavors of butterscotch or even pepper! Part of the fun with wine is to see how many flavors you can identify.

Enjoy the wine

The most important step to tasting wine is to just enjoy yourself and have fun. The most accurate sign of a good wine is one that makes you want a second glass. The best wines are good wines shared with friends!

Beer beats water after exercise

DJ Spiess — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 16:48:10 +0000

Something beer drinkers have known for centuries: Spanish researchers have shown that after exercising, beer is better for you than water. The bubbles help to quench thirst, and the carbohydrates help replace lost calories.

The study asked 25 college students in Spain to do strenuous exercises (we’re guessing yard work for the scientists) in 104 degree temperatures. To help them recover from the “strenuous exercises”, half of the college students were given water and the other half beer. The recovery time for the students was slightly better for those that drank beer – proving a corollary, college students will work for beer.

There was some skepticism from British scientists (the same country that said beer was ok for preggers). They pointed out that beer probably has the same effect as water, since the alcohol in beer is not at a “high enough concentration to produce a diuretic effect” (need to pee).

(Source: FoxNews)

Brits: “Knocking one back when knocked up A-OK”

DJ Spiess — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 17:01:33 +0000

The Britain’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence released a study stating that their experts have found “no consistent evidence” that low-to-moderate alcohol consumption will pose any risk to the unborn child after the first trimester. They did add CYA to their own report by adding that they could not rule out risk completely. They also mentioned that alcohol consumption might increase the risk of miscarriage during the first three months.

The Institute recommended that the soon-to-be-moms limit their consumption to 1.5 servings per day. The report has caught many other countries by surprise (but British expectant mothers are delighted), since most research has shown alcohol consumption to be harmful. Experts are still submitting recommendations, and the final report will be out next March.

(Source: Canada.com)

The tongue map myth

DJ Spiess — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 02:09:30 +0000

The different taste buds are evenly distributed across the tongue and mouth

We have all learned in grade school science that different parts of the tongue detect different tastes. The front of the tongue detects sweet or salty tastes, while the back of the tongue detects bitter flavors. You might have even performed the experiment as a child where someone drops different flavors on your tongue using an eye dropper as a science experiment. A recent popular video podcast (one which I like very much) even mentions that you should swallow beer while tasting it in order to allow the bitter flavors of the beer to be stronger. The tongue map is often pulled out to give wine or beer tasting that scientific credibility. The problem is: its crap.

No science for tongue map

You'll see this tongue map repeated in many places, but it still isn't true

There is little scientific basis for different parts of the tongue discerning different flavors, and no scientific basis for the regimented tongue map. The confusion comes from a mistranslation of a German text by Harvard psychologist Edwin G. Boring (what a great name) in 1901. The myth was debunked in the 1970s, but for some reason it will not go away.

How does the tongue work?

In reality, the whole tongue and parts of the mouth are capable of distinguishing all different flavors. Some people are better at this than others, and the ability follows a typical bell curve. About 25% of the population is considered supertasters, while 25% are sub par. Women are more likely to be supertasters. Women are often employed as quality tasters in breweries and wineries for this reason. Asians, Africans and South Americans are also more likely to be supertasters.

Your taste buds, called fungiform papillae, give you the ability to taste. It is thought that supertasters have more taste buds than average, but it still requires more research to be sure. A heightened ability for taste would be beneficial in some regions of the world, but could be a liability in others. The buds can differentiate five flavors: sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and umami. Umami is a Japanese word meaning “savory”, and was identified by a Japanese researcher in 1908. Umami applies to the detection of glutamates – meats, cheeses, or other heavy protein flavored foods. It is also why MSG (monosodium glutamate) makes food taste better. Each taste bud has about 100 flavor receptors. The distribution of which type of flavors the taste bud can determine varies, but the distribution does not match the tongue map at all.

So next time a tasting expert trots this cliché out, correct the expert – tongue in cheek!

Won’t You Be My Drinking Buddy Neighbor?

Petra Spiess — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 05:33:14 +0000

You want to head out and have a beer (or two—three) with your buddies, but there’s a problem: you live in the suburbs, so here comes the rounds of “Who’s going to drive?”. Standard suburban design, with housing separated from retail and office uses, forces people to drive for their every need, no matter how small. One glass of wine in a nice establishment involves a minimum 10 minute car ride in most of suburbia, and any more to drink requires the presence of a designated driver. But things are changing, a neighborhood planning movement called new urbanism is creating communities all across the U.S. with design features that reduce the risk of drunk driving, so you can live in the suburbs and drink your beer too!

Heading to a park party with kegs

Promoting Community

30 to 40 adults stand talking in a small neighborhood park, their conversation knots are overlaid by the delighted shouts of almost as many kids carousing like dog packs in the warm summer’s twilight. They are all neighbors. Every Friday night, residents of the new urbanist community Bradburn Village in Westminster, Colorado gather for their weekly park party. Adults socialize over beer and wine while the kids play together. Bradburn is designed to encourage social interaction among neighbors, and judging by the packed park parties and the incredible number of social events here, it works.

Every home in Bradburn includes a large front porch—not just a token 2 foot concrete stoop. Garages are all in the back, and homes here also have very small setbacks (the distance between the house and the sidewalk, or front yard), meaning the porches sit right above the sidewalks. This means people sitting on their front porches easily see neighbors walking by, and they stop to talk, creating a community bond that is so elusive in most traditional suburban neighborhoods.

Porch party in Bradburn

Other community features that encourage social interaction among neighbors include public spaces such as the many pocket parks—every home in the development is a 5 minute walk from one of these green spaces—wide sidewalks, and an interconnected street grid (no cul-de-sacs) that makes the community very pedestrian friendly. As a result of these design features, Bradburn’s residents all know each other, and many have become close, meaning if you want to socialize with your friends over a few drinks, you just wander on down to the park or walk 5 minutes to your buddy’s home.

Walking Distance to Bars and Restaurants

Because of zoning laws in the suburbs of America, it’s actually illegal to build residences too close to bars and restaurants. Zoning laws in most suburban areas dictate single use for different portions of land: residences here, offices here, and retail here, with buffers (usually huge, ugly walls) between. The most beloved places in America however, don’t follow this pattern, they mix uses close together, so that it’s possible to walk to many different things directly from home. Most of these places were developed before the car dominated the lives of Americans—San Francisco, New York, Georgetown, Charlotte. New urbanism (which is actually just old urbanism applied to single use zoned areas) revives the idea of mixed uses in the same neighborhood, something that is currently pretty rare outside urban areas.

Shops in Bradburn

Residents of Bradburn Village for example, are a 5-10 minute walk from 3 different bars and over 15 restaurants, with more to come as their downtown area is developed. New urbanist communities mix retail, office, and residences all in the same development, so if you want to get a beer or glass of wine out, you don’t have to drive.

Access to Public Transit

The voters in the city of Denver, Colorado approved a sales tax increase in 2004 to support the construction of more than 100 miles of commuter train to connect the metro area and the nearby communities of Boulder, Louisville, and Longmont. Communities are springing up all along future proposed stops for this rail line, providing residents of these areas an opportunity to live in close walking distance to exceptional mass transit. These developments, often referred to as Transit Oriented Developments (TOD) are also popping up in different places across the nation such as Salt Lake City, Utah. The new urbanist community of Daybreak will have two light rail stops as part of a recently approved extension of a light rail system.

These different neighborhood design features have one goal in common: to reduce the need for driving. Residents of these communities no longer need to spend significant amounts of time bargaining with their buddies on whose turn it is to be designated driver for the evening—everyone can join in the libations without fear, and if that isn’t progress, what is?

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