1. Beer drinkers live longer
Moderate drinking is good for you, and beer is good for moderate
drinking. Everyone knows that if you drink too much, it's not good for
you. Let's not pull punches: If you're a drunk, you run into things, you
drive into things, you get esophageal cancer,
you get cirrhosis and other nasty conditions. But more and more medical
research indicates that if you don't drink at all, that's not good for
you either. According to numerous independent studies, moderate drinkers
live longer and better than drunks or teetotalers. Beer is perfect for
moderate drinking because of its lower alcohol content and larger volume
compared with wine or spirits. And as that old radical Thomas Jefferson said, "Beer, if drank with moderation, softens the temper, cheers the
spirit, and promotes health." And he didn't need a scientific study to
tell him that.
2. Beer is all-natural
Some know-it-alls will tell you that beer is loaded with additives and
preservatives. The truth is that beer is as all-natural as orange juice
or milk (maybe even more so - some of those milk & OJ labels will
surprise you). Beer doesn't need preservatives because it has alcohol
and hops, both of which are natural preservatives. Beer is only
"processed" in the sense that bread is: It is cooked and fermented, then
filtered and packaged. The same can be said for Heineken.
3. Beer is low in calories, low in carbohydrates and has no fat or cholesterol
For a completely natural beverage, beer offers serious low-calorie
options. Twelve ounces of Guinness has the same number of calories as 12
ounces of skim milk: about 125. That's less than orange juice (150
calories), which is about the same as your standard, "full-calorie"
beer. If beer were your only source of nutrition, you'd have to drink
one every waking hour just to reach your recommended daily allowance of
calories (2,000 to 2,500). And nobody's recommending you drink that
many. The only natural drinks with fewer calories than beer are plain
tea, black coffee and water. Surely, beer is loaded with those fattening
carbohydrates, right? Wrong again. The average beer has about 12 grams
of carbs per 12-ounce serving. The U.S. Recommended Daily Allowance is
300 grams of carbohydrates in a standard 2,000-calorie diet. In other
words, you would need to drink an entire 24-pack case of beer - and then
reach into a second case - simply to reach the government's recommended
daily allotment of carbohydrates. You're better off munching an apple
or drinking some soda pop if you want to carbo-load. Each has about 35
to 40 grams of carbs - three times the number found in a beer. Also,
beer has no fat or cholesterol.
4. Beer improves your cholesterol
Beer not only has no cholesterol, it can actually improve the
cholesterol in your body. In fact, drinking beer regularly and
moderately will tilt your HDL/LDL cholesterol ratios the right way.
You've got two kinds of cholesterol in your system: HDL, the "good"
cholesterol that armor-plates your veins and keeps things flowing, and
LDL, the "bad" cholesterol that builds up in your veins like sludge in
your bathtub drain. Beer power-flushes the system and keeps the HDL
levels up. According to some studies, as little as one beer a day can
boost your HDL by up to 4 per cent.
5. Beer helps you chill
The social aspects of moderate drinking are solidly beneficial to your
health. In other words, to get out every now and then and relax with
your buddies over a couple of beers.
6. Beer has plenty o' B vitamins
Beer, especially unfiltered or lightly filtered beer, turns out to be
quite nutritious, despite the years of suppression of those facts by
various anti-alcohol groups. Beer has high levels of B vitamins,
particularly folic acid, which is believed to help prevent heartattacks.
Beer also has soluble fiber, good for keeping you regular, which in
turn reduces the likelihood that your system will absorb unhealthy junk
like fat. Beer also boasts significant levels of magnesium and
potassium, in case you were planning on metal-plating your gut.
7. Beer is safer than water
If you're someplace where you are advised not to drink the water, the
local beer is always a safer bet. It's even safer than the local bottled
water. Beer is boiled in the brewing process and is kept clean
afterwards right through the bottle being capped and sealed, because if
it isn't, it goes bad in obvious ways that make it impossible to sell.
Even if it does go bad, though, there are no life-threatening bacteria
bacteria (pathogens) that can live in beer. So drink up - even bad beer
is safer than water.
8. Beer prevents heart attacks
If you want to get a bit more cutting-edge than vitamins, beer has
other goodies for you. You've heard of the French Paradox, how the
French eat their beautiful high-fat diet and drink their beautiful
high-booze diet and smoke their nasty goat-hair cigarettes, but have
rates of heart disease that are about one-third that of the restof the world? It's been credited to red wine and the antioxidants it contains. Hey, guess what else has lots of antioxidants, as many as red wine? Dark beer! According to the American Heart Assn,
"there is no clear evidence that wine is more beneficial than other
forms of alcoholic drink." One study profiled in the British Medical
Journal in 1999 said that the moderate consumption of three drinks a day
could reduce the risk of coronary heart disease by 24.7 per cent.
9. Beer fights cancer
The most amazing beer and health connection is something called
xanthohumol, a flavonoid found only in hops. Xanthohumol is a potent
antioxidant that inhibits cancer-causing enzymes, "much more potent than
the major component in soy," according Dr. Cristobal Miranda of the
Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology at OSU. This xanthohumol stuff is so good for you that the Germans have actually brewed a beer with extra levels of it.
10. Beer does not give you a beer belly A study done by researchers at the University College of London and the Institut Klinicke a Experimentalni Mediciny in Prague
in 2003 showed no connection between the amount of beer people drank
and the size of their overhang. "There is a common notion that beer
drinkers are, on average, more 'obese' than either non-drinkers or
drinkers of wine or spirits," the researchers said. But they found that
"the association between beer and obesity,
if it exists, is probably weak." Most studies have found that people
who drink beer regularly (and moderately) not only don't develop beer
bellies - they weigh less than non-drinkers. Beer can boost your
metabolism, keep your body from absorbing fat and otherwise make you a
healthier, less disgusting slob. Just drink it in moderation, as part of
an otherwise healthy diet.
So that's it. Drink beer. You'll
live longer and be happier. You won't get fat. In fact, you may weigh
less. You'll boost your metabolism, improve your health and reduce your
risk of clogged arteries, heart attack and cancer. What more could you
want?
Finally something worth reading eh?
What you are seeing here is the Mermaid. Yes, it is a little one, but not the one from the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale.