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![]() Beer can be good for you. Photo © Greek Golangco More About BeerCook With BeerBeer NutritionAbout.com Health's Disease and Condition content is reviewed by our Medical Review Board
Can Drinking Beer Be Good for You?Beer and nutrition? You don't usually see those two words together, but perhaps beer is a bit misunderstood. It may actually be good for you when consumed in very moderate amounts.
Beer has been brewed for just about as long as humans have been cultivating crops and is actually made with some very healthy ingredients. Those ingredients are hops, brewer's yeast, barley and malt. There are different styles of beer and each style has a distinctive flavor and color. Tasting and learning about the different types of beer is as much fun as tasting and learning about the different types of wine. Part of a Healthy DietDrinking one beer per day may be good for your health because it has been associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease. Why? Some experts suggest these reasons:
Of course that doesn't mean that if one beer is good, three or four must be better. That isn't true. Drinking more than one beer or any alcoholic beverage per day can put too much alcohol in your system and that isn't good for you. Heavy drinking has been associated with several health problems, so moderation is definitely the key with drinking beer. The studies also point to one beer per day as being beneficial, not drinking all seven beers in one day per week. That type of binge drinking will overload you system with alcohol too. The benefits of beer nutrition probably have nothing to do with the alcohol and there are some low-alcohol beers and non-alcohol beers available which offer the same heart-protective effect as regular and light beers. Nutrition InformationAccording to Michael Jackson, the Beer Hunter, Trappist monks drank beer to sustain themselves during their Lenten fasts. They called their beer "liquid bread."We don't tend to think much about the nutritional aspects of beer, but according to the USDA National Nutrient Database, one 12-ounce serving of regular beer has the following nutrients:
Drinking Too MuchWhile drinking one beer per day may improve your health, heavy drinking will not. In fact heavy drinking has the opposite effect. Heavy drinking is defined as more than 21 drinks per week for women and more than 35 drinks per week for men. Drinking heavily leads to liver damage, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, pancreatic diseases, severe thiamin deficiency and some cancers.Who Shouldn't Drink Beer?Beer drinking isn't for every one. Some people have personal or religious reasons for not drinking beer or other alcoholic drinks. That's OK. All of the health benefits of beer can be found in other foods beverages. The following people should not drink beer, or should speak with their doctor before drinking beer or other alcoholic beverages:
Updated: February 5, 2008 More About BeerCook With Beer |
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