Almost 13 million adults are risking their health by drinking too much because of a failure to appreciate both the increasing strength of alcoholic drinks and the trend for larger measures, Government statisticians have revealed.
No, not the fact they\’re now saying that as wine has got stronger astonishing, now we need to define a large glass as three units, but this:
Men are advised to drink no more than 21 units per week and women only 14.
Just a few weeks ago it was revelaed that there is no medical basis for that advice at all. It was simply made up out of thin air. In fact, in order to have the same health risks as a teetotaller, men need to be consuming 60 units a week.
Now I don\’t mind information campagns about public health, but I would rather like them to be accurate. Consumption of alcohol follows (as with so many other things), in its health effects, a curve. A U shaped one. And the bottom of the U is well beyond what we\’re being told are the safe drinking limits.
So stop lying already, eh?
I don’t deny that there are more high-alcohol beers and lagers around than before but …
1978 – Liebfraumilch (sp?) and Lambrusco (yuck)
2007 – decent Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.
All that has happened (IMNSHO) is that the increasing desire for wine in pubs has lead to an increase in quality of the wine there (and in supermarkets). The stuff from wine merchants and specialist suppliers like the Wine Society, I would hazard, has barely changed in alcohol content.
I don’t know very much about the subject but it seems (in the U.S.) that, at the same time as has occurred a great increase in consumption of wine, there has been similar expansion in the consumption of beer–but that the greatest increase has been of the products termed “lite”–with attenuated alcohol contents. Years ago, these were consumed in much smaller proportion and especially by certain lesser-age classes denied legal access to the “regular” stuff. Now, the lites are the preference of very many beer consumers. In the main, it seems that what has increased extaordinarily in this realm (as in many others) is consumer choice.
By the way, could anyone tell me what is meant by “units?” I presume it’s either fluid ounces or cubic centimeters but have seen no definition.
Gene,
No, it is a spurious measure supposedly equivalent to 8g or 10ml of ethanol – so 10cc not 1. Basically, it was designed so that even when pissed those who have suffered the British state education system can still ignore the hell out of it and have another alco-pop.
Let’s see: 21 units × 10 ml/unit = 210 ml ethanol. 330 ml bottle of Stella Artois @ 5.2% ABV = 17.16 ml/bottle. 210/17.16 ~ 12.23.
So, thirteen bottles of Stella tonight and I’ll have had a whole weeks’ worth of GMC busybody’s booze quota. Easy. Piece of piss you could say.