Would you consider beer junk food?

In My Humble Opinion
1

So for the past two days, I was at a conference with a bunch of coworkers. During the work we were all “business”, but in the evening it was “let’s go to the bar and get wasted!”

I’m not a drinker. I was not brought up around alcohol, and I don’t enjoy its consumption or its intoxicating effects. I also don’t like being around intoxicated people.

But I wanted to be a part of the gang. I didn’t want to be the weird person drinking milk at the bar. So even though I hate beer I ordered one anyway…on the offhand chance that it wouldn’t that bad. Through sheer determination and a whole lot of ribbing, I managed to get down only a third of it . On the second night I ordered a girly vodka-laden drink that was not as bad, but still not my cup of tea. I drank enough of it to feel “drunk”, though. My voice was loud and annoying enough. But I still caught a lot of (good-natured) flak for ordering a girly, frou-frou drink and not finishing all of it.

One of the main people who was giving me a hard time is a bonafide health nut. Very adamant about not eating junk and processed food and not at all shy about expressing her disapproval of my less-than-conscientious food choices. Now she does this in a jocular way, so I’m not posting this out of butthurt. And I’ll be the first to admit that I eat pizza way too often for someone my age.

But I noticed something last night, when we all were “partying” in her hotel room after we came back from the bar.

This woman was throwing back beers left and right. I’d say she had at least four, and she’s a tiny woman. Based on the debriefings of her weekend activities, I’d say this is a fairly regular habit of hers. She is a lover of all alcoholic beverages, especially beer.

Does it make sense for her to be self-righteousy about food, but blasé about beverage? The next time she gives me a hard time about gnoshing on a bag of chips instead of a quinoa and bean sprout sandwich, would it be cool to get back at her with a zinger about her beer habit? Or would that be crossing the line somehow?

2

Everyone is a hypocrite on some level. Those that are self-righteous are usually the worst kind. I know this because Im better than them and they are idiots. :wink:

Anywho, is beer junk food? Well, it has a lot of calories and not so much nutrition. Lots of carbs. So…um… where was I going with this? Oh yes, I’ll have a beer please.

3

They don’t call it a “beer gut” for nothing.

4

Yeah, it’s junk food, but it makes you happy, and being happy is good for you; thus it balances out. So I tell myself.

5

Macro beers are junk food. Optimator, OTOH…

6

It’s not as bad for you as the things that most people think of as junk food: sugary sodas, fistfuls of corn chips, mounds of chocolate, cake, cookies… great, now I’m all hungry. Where was I?

Oh, yeah. Beer. It’s got some calories, but probably less than anything else you’d drink that wasn’t water or water with the dreaded artificial sweetener in it, which, if you’re a health faddist, is obviously of the devil, unless you’re using Stevia, which is pure as the driven snow and derived from the finest organic hoof parings from Tibetan yaks which… just tastes nasty. But sugar free! And not made of chemicals! :dubious:

It also has alcohol in it, which is going to mess with the way your body does pretty much everything, at least a little bit, for at least a little while, so if you’re trying to get something done in the foreground (thinking, talking, driving, brain surgery), you’re probably going to suck at it to some degree. It’s also going to mess with anything you’re trying to do in the background (get over a cold, digest food, repair exercise injuries, fight off liver disease), and you’re going to suck at that, too, but you’re not going to notice it until tomorrow morning when you get up and wonder why your legs are still so sore from your 10k run yesterday morning…

Big, frou-frou drinks that come in half a pineapple with a bunch of stuff sticking out of it tends to have a lot of fruit juice in it, which has fiber, which is good for you, but way lots of sugar, so see above re: beer has calories.

Generally speaking, having a few drinks when you’re out is one more meal of the day. If it’s not healthy stuff, then that meal isn’t healthy. If you only do this once or twice a week, it’s not a game-changer. If you’re on the cast of Mad Men, this could be a problem.

Oh… in the list of things you’re trying to do in the foreground, that alcohol might interfere, also add “Trying not to eat a lot of junk food” and you’ve got yourself one vicious little circle, there.

7

Out of curiosity I just did a little Googling and came up with 154 calories for a 12 oz. can of beer. This is (slightly) more than a can of regular Coke, which is 140 calories. 12 oz. of 1% milk would be about 145 calories, and skim milk would be about 120 calories. Tea and coffee drinkers would have to add about ten (!) teaspoons of sugar at 16 calories each to get more calories than a can of beer…although I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s sweet tea out there that does have that much sugar.

ETA: I can’t swear to the accuracy of these numbers, they’re what I came up with Googling calories beer, etc., and then doing some quick math to estimate the calories for the same size servings. Google is probably accurate, but it’s entirely possible that my calculations are not.

8

In order:

No. Doubly so if she drinks mainstream Corporate American beer. Or more than a couple a week total.

It’d be cool if you could pull it off with the same jocularity she uses to rib you about your dietary choices. If not; not so cool.

No line crossing if done well & she’s not a jerk. Maybe you’ll smarten her up. If not, maybe you’ll shut her up. Either is a win for you both.

I say give it a try & report back with results. -)

9

You can send her this lovely infographic from the CDC:
Alcohol and Your Health (PDF)

10

You watch It’s Always Sunny, don’t you?

11

Yes. Glorious, glorious junk food.

12

I wouldn’t put it in the junk food category, it was a important nutritional staple of the civilized world many times over. In that sort of like bread.

But it often leads to junk food consumption.

13

I’ve always considered alcoholic beverages, not just beer, to be an extravagance. My partner had a beer belly and stopped drinking beer - didn’t change his habits other than that - and the belly was gone.

14

I detest beer; but if other people like it, power to them. As one of the world’s oldest — and most basic — drinks, it doesn’t qualify as junk in any sense.

15

I’m not following your logic.

Pure sugar is an ancient, basic food too. But if my coworker were guzzling sugar, you better believe I’d be laughing at her.

What makes beer so much better than soda?

16

there are no sugar snobs. at least none that I’ve encountered.

17

Beer has vitamin B in it! Hypovitaminosis B is nothing to laugh at.

Cheers!

18

If your coworker is anti “processed” food, she’s probably alright with processing wheat stalks into bread - the phrase means she’s anti “processed after the 1970s/80s” food. Hydrogenated oils, artificial sweeteners, microwavable meals, soda with as much high fructose corn syrup as they can pack in, etc. Beer is something John Adams had for breakfast, so it doesn’t have those negative modern connotations. Irrational, sure, but that’s people for ya.

(Plus, from a nutrition standpoint, beer is healthier than wine or fruit drinks in the sense that it has less sugar. Not tofu, but still.)

19

That may be true, but surely quantity matters?

If she had just knocked back one or two, she wouldn’t have seemed contradictory. But five beers within the span of two hours seems no different, in terms of gluttony, than the brownie and ice cream I ordered for dessert (along with the horrible beer I barely touched). Of course she gave me a hard time for making this decadent choice. But it seems to me that five beers is just as decadent, especially for a person her size. The only difference is that a brownie and ice cream isn’t as “cool.”

20

Not so much.

Unless you mean honey. Which meant fighting bears.

Why ? She likes what she likes.
The fact that people have been drinking it — many without harm — since pre-Egyptian times, shows it gives enjoyment and is not toxic. There are many things we can give up, but the fact we can doesn’t mean we must. Asceticism leading to sitting on a pillar subsisting on rainwater and the odd bug is not the goal of life, nor even admirable.