4 ms·

This seems to be a cultural UK/US difference which I've noticed moving to the US. In the UK a glass of wine with food every night would be seen as part of a hea

This seems to be a cultural UK/US difference which I've noticed moving to the US. In the UK a glass of wine with food every night would be seen as part of a healthy mediterranean diet and health advice on alcohol was refocussed to discourage binge drinking, emphasizing daily rather than weekly consumption limits. In the US daily drinking seems to be seen as bad (perhaps a legacy of prohibition?) while binge drinking once a week doesn't seem to be seen as particularly problematic.

pkaye 7y ago
In the US its a pretty skewed distribution. 30% don't drink at all. Another 30% less than once per week. The top 10% drinks a crazy amount. https://drinksfeed.com/think-you-drink-a-lot-this-chart-will-tell-you/ https://drinksfeed.com/think-you-drink-a-lot-this-chart-will...
- Bartweiss 7y ago
  The data is also an unbelievable mess. We can work towards drinking from two directions: self report consumption and alcohol sales ought to lead to the same number. Not perfectly of course - drinks get thrown away, saved as gifts, used to cook, and so on. But last I looked, the ratio of drinks sold to drinking reported in the US was two to one. (I'd love to see the same data for other countries.) So either people understating their drinking by a huge amount, or the studies are undersampling groups that do a lot of drinking. Probably both. We can make some good guesses: minors probably don't admit to their drinking, teetotalers probably self-report more accurately than occasional drinkers, and so on. But it's a gap so big that it's hard to talk confidently about what people here are doing.
scrollaway 7y ago
"A glass of wine with food" is fairly rare culturally outside of Europe I believe; and even in Europe, it's uncommon in beer countries (UK, Belgium, …). "Drinking every night" = "[at least] 1 beer / night" in the minds of people who associate drinking with beer. There's no such thing as consuming a small glass of beer as it's not really a beverage you savour.
- alamortsubite 7y ago
  Small (8 oz./235 ml) servings of beer that are very much meant to be savored are very common in bars in the U.S.!
  - mamon 7y ago
    In Netherlands or Belgium 8-12 oz servings of beer compensate by it having higher ABV (8-10%), so the amount you consume is actually pretty much the same as with 16oz lager or pilsner.
    - alamortsubite 7y ago
      Yes, it's the same in the U.S. (though much of the beer is less worthy of savoring). But the point stands that "there's no such thing as consuming a small glass of beer as it's not really a beverage you savour" is wildly inaccurate.
      - scrollaway 7y ago
        You're right, I should have qualified that statement with "for most people…". I doubt your claim that this sort of beer savouring is "common in US bars" (or if it is commonly available, I doubt that it is commonly ordered). To put it another way, compare the amount of alcohol ingested on an average evening where beer was the primary beverage vs. an average evening where wine was the primary beverage. I don't have data to back this up and it's not like I drink heavily myself, but my instinct and experience tells me alcohol-for-wine consumption is much lower than beer's, and so it is in most people's minds.
DanBC 7y ago
> In the UK a glass of wine with food every night would be seen as part of a healthy mediterranean diet and health advice on alcohol was refocussed to discourage binge drinking, I don't understand what you mean. Public Health advice on alcohol in the UK has been pretty consistent for many years. There are 3 changes: the limits for men went from 21 units a week to 14 units a week; the advice to pregnant women to avoid all alcohol became stronger; and the advice about not allowing under 18s to drink alcohol became stronger. In 1987 the advice was pretty close to what it is today. http://www.ias.org.uk/uploads/pdf/Consumption%20docs/A%20brief%20history%20of%20the%20low%20risk%20drinking%20guidelines.pdf http://www.ias.org.uk/uploads/pdf/Consumption%20docs/A%20bri... We don't know if there's a safe limit men should drink no more than 21 units per week women should drink no more than 14 units per week both men and women should have 2 to 3 days drink free the total number of weekly units should not be drunk in 1 or 2 bouts.
- sireat 7y ago
  Obligatory BBC public service announcement on safe drinking levels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-ZVdHnOqd8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-ZVdHnOqd8
- laurencerowe 7y ago
  It must have been the 1995 change: > The most significant change to the Government guidelines was the move from weekly limits to daily limits. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmsctech/1536/153605.htm https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmsc...

pkaye 7y ago

In the US its a pretty skewed distribution. 30% don't drink at all. Another 30% less than once per week. The top 10% drinks a crazy amount. https://drinksfeed.com/think-you-drink-a-lot-this-chart-will-tell-you/ https://drinksfeed.com/think-you-drink-a-lot-this-chart-will...

Bartweiss 7y ago
The data is also an unbelievable mess. We can work towards drinking from two directions: self report consumption and alcohol sales ought to lead to the same number. Not perfectly of course - drinks get thrown away, saved as gifts, used to cook, and so on. But last I looked, the ratio of drinks sold to drinking reported in the US was two to one. (I'd love to see the same data for other countries.) So either people understating their drinking by a huge amount, or the studies are undersampling groups that do a lot of drinking. Probably both. We can make some good guesses: minors probably don't admit to their drinking, teetotalers probably self-report more accurately than occasional drinkers, and so on. But it's a gap so big that it's hard to talk confidently about what people here are doing.

scrollaway 7y ago

"A glass of wine with food" is fairly rare culturally outside of Europe I believe; and even in Europe, it's uncommon in beer countries (UK, Belgium, …). "Drinking every night" = "[at least] 1 beer / night" in the minds of people who associate drinking with beer. There's no such thing as consuming a small glass of beer as it's not really a beverage you savour.

alamortsubite 7y ago
Small (8 oz./235 ml) servings of beer that are very much meant to be savored are very common in bars in the U.S.!
- mamon 7y ago
  In Netherlands or Belgium 8-12 oz servings of beer compensate by it having higher ABV (8-10%), so the amount you consume is actually pretty much the same as with 16oz lager or pilsner.
  - alamortsubite 7y ago
    Yes, it's the same in the U.S. (though much of the beer is less worthy of savoring). But the point stands that "there's no such thing as consuming a small glass of beer as it's not really a beverage you savour" is wildly inaccurate.
    - scrollaway 7y ago
      You're right, I should have qualified that statement with "for most people…". I doubt your claim that this sort of beer savouring is "common in US bars" (or if it is commonly available, I doubt that it is commonly ordered). To put it another way, compare the amount of alcohol ingested on an average evening where beer was the primary beverage vs. an average evening where wine was the primary beverage. I don't have data to back this up and it's not like I drink heavily myself, but my instinct and experience tells me alcohol-for-wine consumption is much lower than beer's, and so it is in most people's minds.

DanBC 7y ago

> In the UK a glass of wine with food every night would be seen as part of a healthy mediterranean diet and health advice on alcohol was refocussed to discourage binge drinking, I don't understand what you mean. Public Health advice on alcohol in the UK has been pretty consistent for many years. There are 3 changes: the limits for men went from 21 units a week to 14 units a week; the advice to pregnant women to avoid all alcohol became stronger; and the advice about not allowing under 18s to drink alcohol became stronger. In 1987 the advice was pretty close to what it is today. http://www.ias.org.uk/uploads/pdf/Consumption%20docs/A%20brief%20history%20of%20the%20low%20risk%20drinking%20guidelines.pdf http://www.ias.org.uk/uploads/pdf/Consumption%20docs/A%20bri... We don't know if there's a safe limit men should drink no more than 21 units per week women should drink no more than 14 units per week both men and women should have 2 to 3 days drink free the total number of weekly units should not be drunk in 1 or 2 bouts.

sireat 7y ago
Obligatory BBC public service announcement on safe drinking levels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-ZVdHnOqd8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-ZVdHnOqd8
laurencerowe 7y ago
It must have been the 1995 change: > The most significant change to the Government guidelines was the move from weekly limits to daily limits. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmsctech/1536/153605.htm https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmsc...