Is Healthy Alcohol Consumption Possible?

Hey guys! This is Heather from HealthyEatingStartsHere.com. So today I wanted to take a look at healthy alcohol consumption and whether it is possible. Some of you might be heading out to some Halloween parties this weekend so I thought it would be a good time to take a look. Alright! So overall, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a few drinks, every so often. It’s when you overdue it then it gets to be an issue in terms of health. But there are some reasons that Phil and I don’t drink too much anymore and the main one would be that alcohol is basically a toxin that your body then has to clear through your liver. If you drink too much it’s gonna overload your liver and cause some problems that way. The other thing to consider is that alcohol is basically empty calories so if you’re looking at weight loss or just basically having healthy calories in your body then alcohol is something that you want to look at. Alcohol is a carbohydrate but it doesn’t work like other carbohydrates. Most carbs have four calories per gram whereas alcohol actually has seven calories per gram which something that I found very interesting when I learned that. And it- they don’t act like regular calories. They don’t give the same energy to your body so you can’t use them as efficiently and that means that they’re gonna turn to fats more easily. So that’s just something to keep in mind but I do think that there are a place for alcohol in a healthy diet, you just have to keep it in moderation. And there’s some benefits that they’ve shown to alcohol, I’m sure everyone has heard of red wine and its resveratrol antioxidants, those are you know, those are decent things and while I don’t think that wine is necessarily the best source, you know, it’s not all downside, I guess that’s what I’m trying to say. You can get resveratrol from grapes; you can get lot of antioxidants from fresh produce and you can get supplements that’s have a ton more resveratrol than you’re gonna get from a glass of red wine. But I think most importantly the benefit of alcohol is that it brings us together in social situations and it gets you having fun, it maybe makes conversations flow a little bit easier and usually when you’re getting together for drinks with friends, it’s about having fun together and having fun is the healthy part and a glass or two of alcohol is not gonna hurt you. And if it facilitates that, then that’s fantastic! So a few tips on how to keep alcohol consumption to a moderate level, one thing I like to do if I’m drinking is to alternate an alcoholic drink with a glass of water. It keeps me hydrated and it keeps the effect of the alcohol to a minimum. I really don’t drink very much anymore so alcohol tend to hit me really hard so another thing I like to do is know my limit when I’m going into a party or get together or something like that. So I know if I have three drinks, that’s pretty much my gap and anything over that and it starts to go downhill and if I know that going in, I can plan it. It winds up working out a lot better. Another thing that Phil and I like to do is if we want to have a special night like a date night or movie night or something like that and we might think about having a glass of wine but it might be just as special to have some other kind of special drink. So I really like coconut water which a lot of you might think very weird but it’s tasty! And Phil doesn’t like it but he likes to have sparkling water with some juice so a little mix going and then we just drink that out of a wine glass so it feels really special too. Then if you want to look at some of the better choices I wouldn’t necessary call them healthy but the least unhealthy maybe, you can find some fairly naturally fermented wines, ciders and beers and those are fairly natural forms of alcohol. And you can find some that don’t have quite so much in the way of preservatives and sulphite, things like that. Those often tend to cause reactions so it’s good to look for things that don’t have that. Another thing that I enjoy sometimes is to have a little bit of *** with a glass of water and then I like to put in a little bit of juice usually cranberry or a couple of slices of citrus or something like that coz I just don’t like the taste of *** on its own. You can do the same thing with any other type of alcohol, rum or whatever. Just try to look for ones that are more natural than others. Ones that don’t have much of sugars like coconut rum I think has quite a bit of sugar in it. Sweet anyway so I probably avoid that one and go for some others and if you avoid mix drinks with sodas your gonna avoid a ton of sugar and those shooters that are really sugary, try to stick away from those and just go for things that are simpler, cleaner. A really cool thing that you can do if you want to put on the time and effort is to make your own alcohol. Phil and I had a friend who made some sparkling ginger wine and I actually didn’t try to get any but very cool idea and you can also find recipes for things like elderberry wine, dandelion wine, something to consider. You can find some recipes in a book called “Wild Fermentation” really awesome book in general and has a lot of recipes for brewing your own alcohol. So basically those are my thoughts. If you keep it in balance and moderation, I think alcohol is just fine and if you make some of the better choices than others, you can keep it as low calorie and low preservatives as possible. But I would love to know your thoughts on alcohol and what you think is possible in terms of keeping it in balance in your healthy eating plan. So let me know, leave me some comments and as always if you want more info on nutrition and healthy eating you can head over to my site HealthyEatingStartsHere.com and I will see you guys next time.