The holiday season is a time of conviviality, and nothing is
more celebratory than wine. As we raise our glasses to toast friendships and
family, we remember that wine symbolizes health and happiness. But it is all
too easy to fall out of the habits that define healthy drinking, and moderation
hardly seems a festive theme. With that in mind, here are a few (science-based)
tips for healthy drinking:
1.
Stick with wine. Peak blood alcohol levels are
lower after wine consumption as opposed to spirits, even when the amount of
alcohol is the same. (The same applies for beer, but beer lacks the beneficial
polyphenols of wine.) Mixed drinks also tend to contain more calories from
sugar, while calories from alcohol avoid spikes in blood sugar levels.
2.
Whenever possible have food with wine. Alcohol
is absorbed much more rapidly on an empty stomach, even for wine. What’s more,
wine with meals dampens down what is called “oxidative stress” from certain
foods such as red meat. Wine with food actually makes the food more nutritious!
3.
Pace yourself. You don’t get credit for
moderation if your total weekly consumption occurs only on the weekend. It
might be justifiable mathematically but a pattern of regular drinking (with
meals) is as important as the total amount of drinking. Binge drinking cancels
out the health benefits.
4.
Have a glass of water between drinks. This will help
with metabolism of the alcohol and help you to be mindful of total consumption.
5.
Go with quality – wines you really want to enjoy
and share. You will probably take more time with them and people will be more
likely to appreciate the generosity, thereby slowing the pace of drinking. This
doesn’t mean replacing sociability with snobbery; sharing good wine is one of
the best ways to strengthen connections with those we care about, collaborate
with, and celebrate for. As the late author Clifton Fadiman once said, “A
bottle of good wine begs to be shared; I have never met a miserly wine lover.”
With this last post of 2017, I offer a toast to your health,
your happiness, and your friendship. Cheers!
“What is better than
to sit at the end of the day and drink wine with friends,
or substitutes for
friends?”
--James Joyce
Sound advice! Some of this I learned in college, but other advice I learned over time. You put it all very elegantly. Cheers, Nick
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