For the regular boozer it is a source of great comfort: the fat pile of studies that say a daily tipple is better for a longer life than avoiding alcohol completely.
But a new analysis challenges the thinking and blames the rosy message on flawed research that compares drinkers with people who are sick and sober.
Scientists in Canada delved into 107 published studies on people’s drinking habits and how long they lived. In most cases, they found that drinkers were compared with people who abstained or consumed very little alcohol, without taking into account that some had cut down or quit through ill health.
The finding means that amid the abstainers and occasional drinkers are a significant number of sick people, bringing the group’s average health down, and making light to moderate drinkers look better off in comparison.
Hmmm… An industry that sells wildly overpriced drinks that harm me and cause addiction could stoop as low as sponsoring flawed studies? (My implied shock is humor here. I guessed this long ago.)
Next thing is someone’s going to find out that in spite of high class signaling of tasting, hoarding and showing off with expensive wines, the expensive wines don’t actually automatically taste better…
the expensive wines don’t
actuallyautomatically taste better…
Ftfy
Sometimes they do. I’ve definitely had excellent expensive wines. But I’ve also had great bottles for $10.
For some things cost can matter, it just really depends. Stuff that can only attain certain flavors by aging in barrels, that time makes it cost more (similar to how really good Balsamic Vinegar is costly because of aging).
But yea, there’s a LOT of BS in the wine world. I rarely have an expensive one, it’s not worth the risk in $ for an unknown quantity, when less expensive wines can be great.
To illustrate your last point, Two Buck Chuck has won several awards over the years. It was literally $1.99 a bottle two decades ago and still sits between $2-4 most places.
Two Buck Chuck won awards because people assumed it would be worse than bottom shelf box of wine, and it was actually marginally better.
That doesn’t mean it tasted good, because it didn’t.
It was good for a $2 bottle of wine, but the $2 was doing the heavy lifting.
