Archive for the 'Health & Diet' Category

Many beloved cocktails have earned their place in our hearts with thanks due to the incredible, edible egg. Classic drinks like the Ramos Gin Fizz get their special frothy texture and creamy meringue flavor from egg whites. So I was floored when I read in the New York Times, that the New York City Department of Health had been cracking down on the use of egg whites in drinks at popular cocktail establishments. While raw egg whites may make some precious sippers squeamish, the drinks simply wouldn’t be the same without them.

The issue occurred at Pegu Club, which serves a drink called the “Earl Grey MarTEAni” made with earl grey-infused gin, lemon juice, simple syrup and raw egg white. The ingredients are clearly listed on the menu, with a warning. Nevertheless, the Department of Health issued Pegu a violation requiring a court appearance, because the bartender failed to explicitly inform the customer about the raw egg whites. Pegu immediately stopped serving a drink they’d served for years, though nobody had ever gotten sick. Other bartenders chimed in with the same reports of serving egg-white- laden drinks for years, with nary a sick patron.

I’d prefer to have laws of full disclosure than to have these beloved concoctions banned entirely. But are they necessary?  How would you feel if you consumed raw egg without your knowledge? The stats say that only 1 in every 20,000 eggs is contaminated with salmonella and some argue that the alcohol in the drink knocks it out before it could cause harm. And it’s not just drinks that use raw egg whites, plenty of sauces do too. What’s next, a hollandaise hysteria?

The issue at Pegu Club made me think about some of the proposed new laws regarding wine labels.  New labeling laws may require wineries to disclose the products used in fining be they egg whites, bentonite, animal gelatin or anything else. This is already the case in Australia, where all allergens are listed on the label.

On the one hand, transparency is a good thing. People with dietary restrictions appreciate having the knowledge to make an informed buying decision. On the other hand, I sympathize with the winemaker who resists sharing too much. Wine is confusing enough to consumers, do we want to scare them away? Plus, changing the labels is expensive.

I’m not sure what the answer is, but I imagine the issue is here to stay. Where do you side? The more info, the better? Or is ignorance bliss?

It was 18 years ago in  1991 : 60  Minutes correspondent Morley Safer  appeared on my television screen  with a bottle of wine on a table in front of him and a glass of wine in his hand . He elaborated in glowing terms about how the health and absence of heart disease in France is directly related to what was “found all in this wonderful glass of red wine , ” which he held out to the camera .  Chills went up and down my spine and I remember as if it were yesterday — wine’s “eureka”  moment had finally come and this “tipping point” was accelerated by this powerful ,  highly watched TV show and its cultured host.

Safer referred to this phenomenon as the French Paradox ,  which indicated that societies that have wine as part of their normal meal lead healthier lives and (probably happier ones as well) because of properties in wine that fight heart disease. This was regardless of the extremely rich diet filled with  cheese and other  highly caloric foodstuffs that the French generally consumed on a daily basis.  Hence the paradoxical aspect of the health of the general population in France.

I mentioned this story to a friend of mine who is a senior executive in the wine business and he recalled exactly where he was when the story ran as vividly as most baby boomers remember where they were when President Kennedy was assassinated.

My friend elaborated on how red wine had to be allocated after this broadcast and that the sales of red wine exploded in the ensuing weeks by more than 40% ,  a testament  to the power of network TV in those days and in particular 60  Minutes.

Do you remember where you were when the French  Paradox  segment  first aired?  Do you think there is anything that could happen on the internet that could  generate a sales explosion  comparable to the one  in the early 90’s  in the wake of the French Paradox story?

Adam Strum is the Founder and Chairman of Wine Enthusiast Companies and Editor and Publisher of Wine Enthusiast Magazine.

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Edgar Allan Poe. The 40th anniversary of Woodstock. What do they have in common? Nothing, except that I’m currently researching Poe while also seeing countless articles and documentaries about the mud-drenched rock festival. A deeply spiritual, if cockeyed, connection occurred to me:

One of the last works Poe ever wrote was a book called Eureka, in which he attempted to describe his vision of the creation story, the structure of the universe….and to justify transcendence through, ahem, altered states. You know: achieving an overwhelming, authentic, mystical experience of communion with the infinite, feeling at one with the universe, through artificial means. Poe was a lifelong alcoholic, and may have dabbled in other substances, such as laudanum, a powerful painkiller and tranquilizer in common use in the 19th century. Woodstock…well, among the many things it represents in the popular imagination is spiritual communion, transcendence through altered states, that whole 60s vibe.

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Do different forms of alcoholic beverages give different forms of intoxicating effects? Can it be valid for people to generalize that “beer makes me stupid” and “wine makes me witty” and “Scotch makes me want to punch something” and “rum makes me want to love someone…a lot”?

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One of the great things about writing on the Internet is the ability to come up with new acronyms at will, without some persnickety copy editor questioning all of them. Starting today, I am inaugurating my own WIADE (pronounced Y-ade) blog entries. I’ll try to update the blog daily (but no promises), so I can twitter you on my daily consumption. It’s a chance for me to post tasting notes on wines I might not otherwise get a chance to write about for the magazine–and hopefully a chance for you to let me know how wrong I am.

To get this started, here’s two days’ worth of entries.

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People who know me know that I love to talk about how we, as a species, have managed to remove ourselves completely from the natural order of things in the wild. Traveling through remote parts of India, Africa and Central America, guides have told me time and again of witless vacationers who have jumped out of jeeps to snap a pride of lions, stuffed a poison dart frog in their pockets, or taken a stick to a deadly pit viper.  Where is their natural alarm? It makes you wonder if that thing called Darwinism is really such a bad idea after all.

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You may remember my post about the book, The Red Wine Diet, back in November. Author and cardiologist Dr. Roger Corder clarifies the relation between red wine, what you eat and heart health in a revealing and memorable way.

He debunks a number of accepted platitudes on these subjects, and makes a bold argument that a previously little known group of compounds, procyanidins, is the key found in certain foods and in certain types of red wine that can open the lock to better cardio health and potentially longer life. But are these healthy wines good for your palate, too?

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I’m nearing the end of a week without wine. I don’t believe in the toxin thing, like so many people do. You know, “I’m not eating any meat or drinking any alcohol for a month. I’m eating only grapefruit and avocado and drinking water imported from the Ganges River to cleanse the toxins from my body.”

I don’t think wine is a toxin, more like a tonic, and with all the old and new evidence that wine is good for your health it’s kind of perverse to abstain in order to feel better, isn’t it? So what am I doing this for? That’s what I’ve been asking myself as I pour another San Pellegrino and bitch at the next child to walk by without his/her chores done.

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You’ve heard that red wine is good for your heart, but what kinds of red wine? Roger Corder, a professor and expert in cardiovascular function, tells you in a new book, “The Red Wine Diet: Drink Wine Every Day and Live a Long and Healthy Life.”

Madiran, Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon, Barolo and a number of other big reds are best for you, Corder says. The more dark color, the more extracted flavors, the better. Where can I find a Madiran?

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