Why We Should All Be Drinking Wine...

[CuriousOne]

Not to be my usual killjoy, but even one glass of wine a day for women can increase cancer risk.

killjoy? ... now why would saying something like that make you a killjoy? haha

[babysteps]

I found the whole dissertation on fining wine & food sensitivities & allergies - here it is Open Original Shared Link

and not to start a "study war", but the most popular google link for "wine cancer risk women" was an article that *3* glasses/day of any alcohol increases breast cancer risk 30%; 1 or 2 drinks a day raises the risk by 10%. So there is some increased risk at 1 or 2 drinks a day, but I think I can handle that. 30% is more a concern - luckily I don't quite average 3 drinks a day (I call it 2 glasses of wine, but some definitions of "glass" I'm closer to 1.5). And my specific family cancer history is relatively sparse and specifically lymphoma (of adrenal glands, I suspect may have been celiac related) more than breast.

Like everything else we put in (or on) our bodies, we each have different risks & sensitivities. For me, my body & my genetic history, wine seems to fine in moderation. For one of my friends, red wine=facial numbness, so her decision is very different, and understandably so!

So, no worries Bully4You, not too much a killjoy - just another reminder that awareness=power

[CuriousOne]

It occurred to me today that maybe its not about this or that food... well, at least not in celiacs...

But for normal health if you don't say, have some sort of an allergic reaction to gluten...its all about food combining.

And here in America, with 8000 cultures thrown together...we have not properly learned how to eat with the resources available to us, in such a way that it promotes health.

For instance the Italians. It just so happens that for their situation in life they found wheat a valuable energy source. But they probably realized to intake all that gluten glue they needed to structure a meal in such a way so it would digest well...

Hence the wine...and the antipasto. It seems in those cultures there is a big emphases on a proper meal...which is basically like, a proper food-combining session. Entering food into your tract in such a way to maximize the value of the foods.

Here in America we are just failing at this eating/food stuff. Its not really part of our culture...hence the health issues.

I think on top of that...there is a puritanical ideology that says wine, tobacco, and all the evil sins are horrible and bad for you. And super-refined food isn't? Food then becomes our drug instead of these other things...

But thats sorta besides the point. The thing is, when we start looking at wine as evil somehow...then we lose out. With a meal it seems wine has the ability to help with digestion. Its just another variable in the food-combining.

I think one interesting thing we are doing in America is experimenting with coffee. I would guess that coffee has a purgative effect in the digestion system. Maybe it does help sorta unglue the glue we put inside of it... but it comes at a price. Any food we put in our system will effect us. I think constantly bombarding ourselves with coffee makes us a little bit too much go-go-go all the time...and stressed.

Why do we all drink so much coffee? In South America, in some of the coffee producing countries...people drink more yerba-mate than coffee. Yerba Mate has that ability to keep things moving also, but its not so crude on your GI system.

I think America could hold onto some of its puritanical ideology and still learn to have wine... because if we are going to be eating the same foods as europe and want to be healthy we are going to have to.

Otherwise, you are going to be seeing more and more fringe diet movements coming out of the US...like raw, fruitarians, paleo, there are so many..I've experimented with these things and they do work to some degrees.

For instance raw done right basically makes your digestive system really clean over time. You are not introducing a bunch of glue in your tract...and doing lots of fiber etc etc...so you get really clean. but for me, i became too skinny. But raw make me become cognizant of how much my digestive system was a part of how I felt.

I think paleo is probably really good for most people... its just good pure nutrition...

but the problem is...and probably the original reason we started using grains.... was that a population could not be supported anymore by hunting and gathering...we had to move into agricultural.

plus, i think some of these agricultural foods help facilitate the civilization mindset... they are more numbing type foods... they make you more relaxed...not so vigilant and aware....

So these foods are, in a way, helpful to keep us functioning as a huge society/civilization... its just... with these foods we have to prepare them in such a way, and also eat them in such a way...that they give us more good than harm. With grains its fermenting/sprouting/soaking etc... Milk is probably raw and fermented... corn is a grain too...fermented/soaked...

I wonder if europe does more of these things than we do. As far as the pre-digesting...It seems America started the idea of hyper processing grains, which contributes more illnesses... and we have forgotten to pre-digest them first...

Anyways, even if Europe doesn't follow the past traditions of fermenting/soaking/sprouting grains...it seems they still at least have food combining rules that help digest these things with the least harm.

Basically what I'm getting at...is that instead of seeing one food as some sort of evil villin... (which..isn't that typical in a puritanical mindset? be it tobacco, weed, alcohol, gluten, dairy)... we should step back and see the larger picture..... see the good and bad things about each food... and how to get the most out of our foods by different food combinations etc etc...

I'm still not certain celiacs could ever eat gluten... or even "gluton-intolerant" people... but maybe if they went along time and cleaned up their system...then learned the rules of eating foods the right way...then they could possibly eat wheat again... or maybe not.

[BRUMI1968]

A whole other facet to our thinking about eating is going to be LOCAL - this with the rising food costs. In many parts of the world, there are riots for food. Eating right now is so global. I ate a tomato and avocado for lunch, both of which would not be growing here (Pacific Northwest) right now (or ever in the case of the avo). No rice. No sugar. No wheat (thankfully). ... Lots of potatoes and raspberries where I live...and then the nice garden veggies of course. We provide Idaho with their potato starts, and the world with the most mustard seed of anyplace else. We also have lots of tulips...but those don't taste so good. And salmon and deer (heck in my back yard I could feast on deer)...

So many of us eat foods from all over the place without really thinking about it. The other day we were looking at eggs at the store. No one in America should buy/eat eggs from more than 50 miles from their house. Chickens can be "grown" anyplace. But there were eggs from California, milk from Wisconsin. Whatcom County where I live has one of the highest dairy productions in the country! When going through Montana, BEEF COUNTRY, we went to a restaurant that boasted Iowa corn fed beef. What the heck?

Point is ... what are we eating that is not sustainable? We will probably find out pretty darn quick in the next ten years when food transportation costs skyrocket. With my avocado habit, I'm going to have to move south.

[babysteps]

i'm just learning about eating local - but it's great, not just for minimizing energy use, but is also fresher, and my theory is if food comes from a specific region it's more likely to all work together (taste or health).

Might explain why many places in Europe, you are better off ordering the (less expensive) local wine - it tastes wonderful and goes with the local food.

our town in CT this year for first time had a winter farmer's market - great for me for access to local food, and great for the farmers, if they have a year-round market it's much more viable for them. if only someone local could do quinoa or rice

[VioletBlue]

I don't buy the sticking to the villi thing. I don't believe the digestive system works that way. Some things are harder for the stomach and small intestine to break down into absorbable nutrients, but I don't believe it's possible for anything to "stick" to the villi. The digestive process is largely one of chemically breaking down foods so that their nutrients can be released and absorbed by the villi. The whole sticky analogy may be a simplification the person who originally presented the theory used, but medically I don't think anything "sticks".

Pretty much all wine contains sulfites; it's just a matter of amounts. Organic wines are usually lower in sulfites, but it's virtually impossible to remove the naturally occurring sulfites. Sulfites are a natural result of the fermentation process and are unavoidable. Most organic wines say on the label "No sulfites added" and still carry the warning on the label "Contains suflites". I'm allergic to sulfites and I can tolerate some organic wines, but I can rarely handle more than half a glass. Some organic wines I simple cannot tolerate; it depends more on the maker than the type of wine.

If someone is allergic to suflites, it will not just be wine that sets off a reaction. Chemically processed cornstarch will be a problem as will some dried fruits, things like baking powder and other foods. It used to be sulfites were routinely used in salad bars and on salad fixings in restaurants. Some restaurants still use them on things like french fries in order to retain color.

[BRUMI1968]

Our farmer's market is only from about April to October. It sure is nice, though. We have two - one downtown on Saturdays, and then one nearer to my neighborhood on Wednesdays. We did get a farm open up a little stand downtown which seems open all year, now that I think about it.

It's funny how we have these "staple" foods that we consider completely normal as part of our diet. Like wheat, rice, potato Wheat came from the Levant (Iraq area? Is Levant the same as Fertile Crescent) and came all over the world as folks moved it around. But what "staples" were from here? Well, in the southwest and in Mexico, maize and amaranth; south america quinoa and potato; but what about north america? What did Native Americans eat for staples? Tubers of some kind? Nuts?

Around here (Pacific Northwest Coast) they ate pemmican a lot - this is rendered fat, salmon meat, berries, all compressed and dried. In the summer game and fruit and stuff. I don't know. Whales. Fish.

Anyway, this being less the point than stuff that grows naturally in a place that could be grown. When we get a place we want to settle down permanently (probably in the SW or in Montana), were going to look into what the Native Americans ate there before our culture tried to murder their culture; but also, what things would grow well here, like amaranth growing in arid soil, or quinoa at high altitude, etc.

Grain free is good when you think about eating locally...and I'm grain free...so that's good. Sunflowers...where are they from? (South America I guess, and that's where stevia comes from too.)