wine and health

The UK’s Royal Society for Public Health recently issued a warning that “the insidious increase in the size of wine glasses in bars and restaurants in the past decade” has led many of us to have “unwittingly increased the number of invisible calories we consume in alcohol.” They called for food labeling laws to include calorie content in alcoholic beverages, which are exempt. Writing in the British Medical Journal , RSPH chair Professor Fiona Sim cites a survey which found that 80% of adults did not know the calorie content of their drinks, and speculates that in addition to gargantuan glasses, this may be contributing to the obesity epidemic in the UK. According to the Professor, the average portion served is a whopping 250 ml. (8 ½ ounces!) If that’s true I can’t wait for my trip to the UK this October.  While public health officials are right to be concerned with rising obesity rates and abuse of alcohol, in this case they have missed the mark. For one thing, if larger glasse...