drinking

13 essential minerals and how to get them by drinking

My family seems possessed by grocery shopping. While our liquor supplies languish pathetically, they constantly introduce new solid foods to the house. Bran flakes, chicken broth, peanut butter, pasta, almonds—it’s like a cult of macronutrients.

Do we really need all this solid food?

In an effort to get my parents to pinch off more than a few budgetary dollars each week for alcohol, I delved into the science of nutrition. And good news, my fellow inebriates! It turns out you can get all 13 essential minerals from alcoholic drinks.

Potassium

People typically find this necessary electrolyte in foods such as bananas, tomatoes and potatoes. What about a Bloody Mary with a banana schnapps chaser? Tada!

Chlorine

Without chlorine, the stomach can’t produce acid, nor can the cells conduct their osmotic functions optimally. Put some salt around the rim of that margarita glass.

Sodium

Working in tandem with potassium, sodium is necessary to regulate adenosine triphosphate, a critical factor in intracellular energy transfer. The best way to get it is to include salt with those tequila shots.

Calcium

This workhorse mineral builds bone, supports blood cell synthesis, and is crucial for muscular, cardiovascular and digestive health. Alcoholics need even more calcium than regular people because their damaged livers have difficulty converting vitamin D to the active form necessary for absorbing calcium. This makes Bailey’s Irish Cream important.

Phosphorus

Another component of bones, phosphorus is involved in multiple bodily functions, and found in grains such as oats, wheat and rice. Sounds like beer!

Magnesium

Another mineral that works with a buddy (calcium), magnesium contributes to bone health and ATP functions. Sources include nuts and cocoa. I’m thinking crème de cacao.

Zinc

Your body needs traces of zinc to manufacture important enzymes such as liver alcohol dehydrogenase, responsible for processing alcohol. (Did you know your body makes its own continuous supply of alcohol? You need zinc to break it down.) You can find zinc in an array of foods. How about a whiskey?

Iron

Traces of iron keep anemia at bay. Guinness has famously been prescribed to maintain iron levels (and B vitamins).

Manganese

Another player in enzymatic functions, manganese turns up in many foods, notably grains such as spelt and brown rice. How about some sake?

Copper

Just a trace keeps your body happily making enzymes. Nuts, seeds and grains such as barley contain copper, making beer your metabolic best friend.

Iodine

A tiny amount prevents goiter and boosts the immune, salivary and digestive systems while conferring some antioxidant benefits. Make your daiquiri strawberry, and don’t forget to salt the rim.

Selenium

This trace mineral combats oxidative DNA damage—the sort of free-radical damage that occurs when you pummel your liver regularly. Nuts are a good source—what better excuse to dive into the macadamia nut liqueur?

Molybdenum

If you want to continue catalyzing oxygen, you need a teeny tiny trace of molybdenum. And that’s what a Bloody Caesar is for. 😉

ASTROLIQUOR for Feb. 10-16—What the stars say you should drink!

My Fellow Inebriates,

Here’s your booze horoscope:

Communication comes easily to you this week, Aries. You find it easy to formulate your thoughts, but too bad you don’t have anybody to talk to. Try making friends with some coworkers. Okay, so they don’t think you’re a team player; they don’t understand how you can be overbearing and lazy.  Sounds like you need both a chill-out drink and a pick-me-up. Why not both? Pour Absolut peach into an energy drink and take it to work.

Taurus, one of your biggest talents is evading responsibility, but this week you can’t get away with it. All those nasty little jobs you’ve been putting off are building up, and they’re not going to go away. So you’ll have to find a way to make them fun. Try house-cleaning naked, if you don’t usually do it that way. Put on some music and blend up a big pitcher of something unusual to get you through it. I like this recipe (especially if one of the things you’ve been avoiding is absinthe):

  • 3 oz absinthe
  • 3 oz triple sec
  • 12 oz sweet-and-sour mix
  • 1 cup water
  • lemon juice to taste

Shake it up with ice. If you already like absinthe you might wish to leave out the last four ingredients.

You are gradually getting a handle on what you want in life, Gemini, which should boost your confidence. By the end of April you should have your inner self figured out, and superficiality will rule your life again. New gadgets will beckon to you—cell phones, tablets, a new car! Just remember, if you spend the money on these things, you will not have it for Bacardi products. Pour yourself equal parts white and dark rum, throw some passion-fruit syrup into it, and talk yourself off the ledge.

The past is still bugging you, Cancer, and this week you’re reliving your childhood, wondering whether all those beatings were necessary. You might need until May to figure out that your dad was a dink (or not). The verdict should bring you balance and peace of mind. Time to celebrate! Get out the vodka (currant-flavored), add some tonic and grape juice plus a splash of grenadine, then pound about half a dozen. Call your dad.

Leo, you’re so good at cheering other people up, but it’s not always a good idea to cheer them up with sex. April brings stalkers, and they will complicate your life. Thus drinking alone is best. I see you with your own bottle of vodka, a few lime wedges, and some grenadine, and loving it.

Don’t be shy, Virgo. People around you are onto you; they know you’re interesting and they will listen to you. This is a perfect week to have a party…what about a Weird Drinks party? You know vodka’s always a good base, so into the punchbowl with the Absolut. Next? Apple schnapps! Banana schnapps! Tropical juice (how about watermelon or strawberry?)…then (hmmm) cherry Kool-Aid. Never forget how to be interesting.

Libra, you are full of confidence this week. You feel loved, and the little stuff isn’t bothering you one bit. Even the irritating people at work are easy to ignore. This is the pay-off for letting go of the past. But you still have a bunch of stuff—physical stuff. Whenever you try to purge your house, you get sentimental, and there you are among your old newspaper stacks. Get drunk enough not to care, then throw that shit out. Jagermeister and Coke, damn it.

There’s a Libra bothering you, Scorpio. Annoying the hell out of you, in fact, and this person will not take the hint to back off. It’s because of that time the two of you shared a liter of Everclear mixed with two flavors of Kool-Aid and some Orange Crush. This person thought you were bonding, but you just wanted to make him/her invisible. You don’t know what to do, so this might continue for a while.

Sagittarius, you’ll charm the pants off everyone this week. You’re happy-go-lucky and tolerant—no judgment from you. With this kind of charisma you’ll be an adept manipulator, but try not to. Take that crazy Libra who’s stalking Scorpio. You could lure that person with some Jagermeister and DeKuyper Sour Apple Pucker Schnapps. But then you’d be the one with a stalker.

You’re going to shine this week, Capricorn. And when you look this good, people ask for help. All kinds of people will take up your time, and you’ll help them unreservedly. But it’s tiring you out, and you’re neglecting your own needs. Before you reach your breaking point, tune these supplicants out and hole up with some Captain Morgan spiced rum. Throw some cinnamon schnapps into it and enjoy it alone.

Aquarius, you have a Leo admirer who wants you to perform. Ordinarily you’re pretty good at maintaining your detachment, but this Leo is persuasive! Once you let go of your inhibitions, this liaison may last into August if not longer. So toss those inhibitions. (The best method is alcohol—Southern Comfort for you.)

Pisces, you’re willing to help anyone who asks, but be careful what they ask for. (You don’t want to end up in jail again.) Mainly you need to protect your health and not let anyone tire you out with requests. Seriously! You’re having some bowel flare-ups, and you don’t need the stress of doing other people’s errands. Maintain your boundaries, then relax with some cognac.

You’re not evil for craving a beer

My mother isn’t always admiration-worthy but I do have to hand it to her for abstaining from alcohol during her pregnancies. True, it wasn’t the sacrifice for her that it would have been for me; she didn’t suffer delirium tremens or need to be straitjacketed until the 21-day mark—but she did fend off tremendous beer cravings (although she had one or two occasional sneaky sips). After all, going cold turkey on booze is part of the pregnancy deal.

Except that it’s a relatively new deal.

Prior to a 1973 paper in the Lancet, fetal alcohol syndrome was not recognized. If women were counseled to abstain—which historically they often weren’t—the advice was based on common sense rather than scientific data. In other words, it’s simple common sense not to binge-drink, pregnant or not, but pregnancy is such a taxing condition and so replete with nausea that it just makes sense to advise women not to drink excessively.

But is there any historical wisdom we can cite that relates not to the condition of pregnancy but to the fetus? Strangely enough, literature is lacking in connections between alcohol and deleterious effects on the unborn.

You’d think there’d be an abundance. The bible, for instance, is full of dietary/hygienic exhortations and proscriptions, and it certainly doesn’t stint when it comes to limiting women’s behavior, but those cautions that it expresses against drinking pertain mostly to preconception—i.e., the husband’s ability to get it up and keep it up. As far as the resulting pregnancy? Eerily silent on the matter.

Okay, so the bible is a pretty old document. What about more recent literature? Canadian scholar Ernest Abel, author of numerous articles on FAS, has pored through Greek, Roman, and European history, from ancient to recent, and almost no references to a causal connection between liquor and fetal harm.

FAS is present in an estimated 0.02-0.15% of live births, affecting growth, facial and cranial features, structural, neurological, and intellectual development. FAS children exhibit learning difficulties, low impulse control, and an array of cognitive and motor-skill challenges—rendered all the more tragic given the preventability of the condition.

But you’d think, from popular magazine articles, product warning labels, and public service announcements about alcohol, that ONE drink could cause FAS. The accepted mantra is that “we don’t know how many drinks cause FAS”; therefore, pregnant women shouldn’t drink at all. But this seems a little facile. Surely we have some idea?

The problem with information is that simplicity always reigns supreme. It’s far catchier and easier for a magazine to demonize alcohol during pregnancy than it is to wade into a scientific journal for actual data. Data is boring. And if you bother to dig, and find that 18 units of alcohol per week are deleterious to a fetus, then well! How can you write a headline like: “Is your baby at risk? The scary truth about those 18 drinks!”

According to the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG):

  • No adverse effects on pregnancy outcome have been proven with a consumption of less than 120 gms of alcohol (around 15 units) per week.
  • Consumption of 120 gms (15 units) or more per week has been associated with a reduction in birth weight.
  • Consumption of more than 160 gms (20 units) per week is associated with intellectual impairment in children.

A unit is one 8-gram drink:

  • ½ pint of ordinary strength beer, lager, cider
  • ¼ pint of strong beer or lager
  • 1 small glass of wine
  • 1 single measure of spirits
  • 1 small glass of sherry

Is society incapable of parsing this? Does society consider women so childishly incompetent that it needs to dumb this down from moderate limits to no drinks at all? There are miles of difference between 15 drinks a week and none.

Understandably, many pregnant women might be uncomfortable approaching the 15-drink maximum, and I doubt many pregnant women would even want to. But how did we get to the ad absurdum conclusion that one drink is evil? Where’s the moderation here?

Perhaps the fear is that some pregnant women—you know how they can’t be trusted, with hormones and whatnot—might decide to have 15 drinks all at once. Imagine! I mean, raise your hands—does anyone not realize that would be bad? And if we’re concerned about the few pregnant idiots who might decide to stack their drinks (or take it to the next level and stack two weeks’ worth!), shouldn’t we be worried about them in a more general sense? For instance, they’re probably not eating well either, and then there’s the heroin they’re injecting…

And then there’s the built-in assumption that regardless of what’s proven harmless, complete abstinence is still best. That’s not necessarily true. A British study of over 18,000 households revealed that if a pregnant mother had one or two drinks per week:

  • sons had fewer problems with behavior and hyperactivity
  • daughters had fewer peer-related and/or emotional problems
  • boys had better cognitive abilities than those born to abstainers

The scientific establishment leapt to discredit this study, citing socioeconomic factors (e.g., casual-drinking mothers tended to have higher income/education). These and other variables tend to confound the issue rather than clarify it.

iStockphoto

But what’s troubling is the guilt heaped upon women who have a few drinks here and there before discovering they’re pregnant. Those pregnancies are fraught with worry about the damage potentially done to their developing babies—and that worry is never alleviated by the media. If anything, it’s compounded by a society that is ever-vigilant to ensure that pregnant women abstain 100% from the demon alcohol. It’s patronizing, it’s over-simplified, and it’s unfair.

I’m just a dumb bear without a medical degree, so I’d never tell anyone to drink while pregnant—it’s not my right to do so—but for anyone who’s worried about the one or two drinks consumed before knowing, or feeling guilty for indulging in a Guinness, here are some interesting links:

Mixing medical advice, alcohol and pregnancy

Oxford Journals: Alcohol and Alcoholism—Commentary on the Recommendations of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Concerning Alcohol Consumption in Pregnancy

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome: “The American Paradox”

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome: The Origins of a Moral Panic

Was the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Recognized by the Greeks and Romans?