Posted on 02/16/2005 9:46:38 PM PST by neverdem
REALLY?
THE FACTS Recent studies have found that a little alcohol may help ward off heart disease and slow dementia. But an old wives' tale suggests another reason to indulge in a drink or two with dinner: preventing food poisoning.
Research over the years appears to confirm this. In 2002, for example, health officials in Spain studied an outbreak of salmonella among people who had been exposed to contaminated potato salad and tuna at a large banquet.
Their findings, which were published in the journal Epidemiology, showed that the rate of sickness was lowest in those who had consumed large amounts of beer, wine or spirits.
Consumers of larger amounts of alcohol also had the lowest levels of sickness documented in earlier studies of large salmonella outbreaks in Spain.
But some studies suggest that a drink may have to be stiff for alcohol's protective effect to kick in.
In a 1992 study, for example, health officials in the United States looked at an oyster-borne outbreak of hepatitis A and found that only drinks with an alcohol concentration of 10 percent or greater prevented or reduced the severity of the sickness.
The effect may have something to do with alcohol's ability to strongly stimulate gastric acid secretions in the stomach, and wine may be particularly effective because grapes have antibacterial properties.
THE BOTTOM LINE Alcohol with a meal can lower the risk of food poisoning.
scitimes@nytimes.com
I forgot to add that during the whole SARS scare, IIRC some doctors recommended a few shots of VODKA to cure it.
Its the NY Times so it must be a lie
Since you didn't put a /sarcasm tag, do I have to do a literature search on the references for you? There's plenty of anecdotal testimony on this thread that attests to the advice.
Ha ha! good point!
We spent a couple months in China. My husband was on a job assignment, and while my son and I usually ate in restarants that seemed sanitary, there was only one place to eat near my husband's job assignment, so he ate lunch there everyday.
We called it the "Don't Ask Cafe" because his translator would order for him and when asked what he was eating, the translator would say "don't ask." (they butchered the animals right out the back door of the restaurant and the cages contained rabbits,rats, snakes and cats).
The restaurant appeared very dirty. The tablecloths were a dingy gray (at one time I imagine they were white) and they brought a small teapot of boiling water for you to pour over your plate and silverware to clean it from the previous user.
All that to say, the food was delicious and he never got sick, which he credited to the fact that they always drank alcohol with the meal, something he would not do in the States during a work day, but something that was very much the custom for the Chinese folks with whom he was working.
Well in colonial days, drinking water by itself was considered risky and dangerous. Water was always "purified" by mixing in some alcohol, be it beer, rum or cider. True.
Tell that to Yuschenko!
Juno.
But I do drink some beer if I've just eaten something that tastes "off." I'd rather be cranky than sick.
By the way, I was sitting in a doctor's waiting room yesterday, when the couple next to me began discussing a magazine with Hillary's picture on the front. They were saying, in effect, that they "just knew" that Bush poisoned her.
In college we drink enough we could have eaten turd pizza and not gotten sick.
E coli and Absolut. H-m-m-m!
The only time I ever got food poisoning was from Oysters in New Orleans. It was October and I did not learn of the "dont' eat raw oysters in months that contain the letter r" rule until later.
I was most certainly drinking enough to kill small animals and there is no doubt of the severity of the food poisining. I doubt it was salmonella so that may make a difference.
Before I took them, I saw a post on here that referenced those verses and why that would work.
Well, I cracked open a 8-year-old bottle of wine and started drinking a couple glasses a night. 3 or 4 days later, the stomach problems were gone. If my stomach starts to bother me, I'll down wine for a few days and I'm fine again.
For a former atheist, the Bible continually amazes me.
Used to be that charity case children would get a ration of "only" two gallons of beer per week.
I've been eating raw oysters forever and love them. Of course, I always wash them down with a few beers. ;^)
Actually the rule used to ONLY eat oysters during the months with an "r" in them........although I don't believe that rule ever applied to Gulf Coast oysters. here in the mid-Atlantic oyster season is from September to April.
The only time I ever got food poisoning from Oysters was in late April in Delaware about 20 years ago..........and I was drinking large quantities of beer at the time.
Does the aclu know about this lactose intolerance?
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