The shape of things

The New York Times featured an article recently about Alcohol on a Health Kick. I don't know about you, but when I read that I thought "oxy-moron"

Apparently the new "trend" especially in NYC is to create health-ful cocktails. Meaning using vegetables and fruits instead of high-fructose corn syrup to sweeten your drink. Some restaurants are going all out putting pomegranate and pureed cucumber into drinks.

The critics of this say it's still alcohol, it will still have the same affects as any other alcoholic beverage and that a cocktail should be "a little bit naughty" not a chore. I love that one.

But the proponents of it say it's better than having a syrup filled vodka drink. Much like it's better to have grass-fed local steak than hormone injected caged steak. And researchers found recently that adding alcohol to strawberries and blackberries actually increased their antioxidant capacity. Now that's interesting.

My view? To be honest I'd rather a glass of wine than any kind of liquor any day, but if I were at a place that was serving an interesting "antioxidant-filled" strawberry pomegranate creation, I'd order that way before I'd order some super-sweet syrupy drink.

What do you think? 

Every health and fitness news site today has the same exact story (well, pretty much): how to have a great (and healthy) barbecue. While I'm all for this idea (and if you are too read about it here and here and here and here) I think a more worthy topic (for this blog at least) is about vigilance when consuming alcohol.

This new study found that 1 in 3 Americans have abused alcohol or suffered from alcoholism. To me, that number is staggering. Are we really in a society where only two thirds of American adults can intake alcohol at a healthy rate? I'm not saying that I've never gotten drunk before, but I've definitely never abused it (The study defines it as this: Alcohol abuse: drinking-related failure to fulfill major obligations at work, school or home; social or legal problems; and drinking in hazardous situations.)

So my point is that while many of us will be at bbq's today (and they will most likely be "healthy" due to the wealth of information we've received from the mainstream media) there's a great chance that there will be alcohol at these events. Use caution and judgment. If you are going to drink make sure you know who is taking you home. And don't drink to the point that you won't be able to go to work tomorrow. Be safe and be smart (as my mother always told me).

Have a great 4th!