Should you have beer or wine, any alcohol, in your food after you have stopped drinking alcohol? It’s a simple question. Or is it?
You often hear about alcohol in food and sauces and this video is about whether you should be eating those foods.
You have to look at this from the perspective of, if your aim is never to have a drop of alcohol inside your body every again – you are going to fail, because alcohol is a natural part of our world and digestive processes. Every time you eat, your digestion systems produces a certain amount of alcohol inside your body and there is nothing you can do about that, it is part of your body’s natural processes.
If you eat fruit, at some stage in your life you’re going to eat a fruit which is over ripe and there is a small amount of alcohol in that.
When you are starting out, I would advise you to avoid alcohol at all costs. If there is alcohol in your sauces, trifle or cakes, don’t eat them or try to avoid them. If you do eat them and you don’t know until someone tells you afterwards then it is not something you should worry about but ultimately avoid it if you can.
In the beginning, it was difficult to consider alcohol free beers, I found them to be so close to a beer that I knew something was missing. But, I can now have a non alcohol free beer now and I don’t notice the alcohol is missing, it’s just this beer like substance that I know has no alcohol in it, and that I can drink and not get brain fucked.
The whole point of me not drinking alcohol and the point of this whole thing is not about the alcohol- it’s about the behaviour. It’s the behaviour of me or you sitting there and consuming a large amount of alcohol for the sole purpose of getting drunk; of putting you into a state where you can relax, sleep, get rid of the problems for a while or whatever it is that you are using alcohol for.
The prime purpose is to not put alcohol into your mouth as a way of dealing with things, so if you take that out of the equation, why would you put it into your mouth in the first place?
So, if you’re not putting it in to get a buzz or to relax, sleep or because it’s got a great taste – and that’s just an excuse anyway but for another video – but if you are not doing it for any of those reasons why would you put it into your mouth in the first place.
If you have alcohol as part of a sauce, the likelihood is that most of the alcohol will be burnt off, cooking doesn’t evaporate all of the alcohol, it takes a long time and a certain heat before it disappears, but I’m saying that the quantities of alcohol that you have in any food, any sauce, are minute.
People say, that alcohol free beers aren’t truly alcohol free, because there’s 1.101% of alcohol in them, so you’re not drinking alcohol free beer. It doesn’t make any difference, you would have to drink so many of these beers to get drunk that the liquid itself would probably kill you before you got a buzz out of it.
So, avoid this stuff in the beginning, if you are three or four years down the road and you want to have a little bit of sherry trifle, don’t think that you can’t because of the alcohol.
I think that’s just a prison that you put yourself into, if you think it’s going to affect you, don’t take it; if you think a little bit of brandy in the Christmas cake is going to affect you, don’t eat it.
I know it’s not affecting me so I’ve no problem with my Sister saying to me “There’s a bit of brandy in that are you ok with that?” “Yeah.”
I’ve stopped the behaviour of drinking, I’ve stopped myself from going out and getting drunk and that was the thing that was affecting my whole life; that was the whole point of stopping drinking alcohol for me, if you focus on the alcohol you’ve got problems.
It’s the behaviour you have to get rid of, if you don’t do anything to get rid of the behaviour than you will have some serious issues to deal with, so deal with the behaviour and the alcohol will just sink into the background, it doesn’t make any difference any more, it’s something of no consequence.
Stay safe, keep the alcohol out of your mouth in terms of don’t sit there, drinking it and trying to get drunk instead try to stop the behaviour and get that behaviour out of your life.
Footnote
Just as an end to this video, I just wanted to say that I never put alcohol into my own food, I don’t agree with that. Alcohol is still a poison.
If I’m looking at a recipe and it calls for alcohol, I’ll leave it out.
If I’m in a restaurant and I see there’s alcohol in it, I won’t order that food.
What I’m talking about here is if I am in someone’s house and they give me a piece of Christmas cake and tell me there is brandy in the cake, then I love Christmas cake and I am not going to refuse it. I also know that there is a lot of sugar in the cake which is bad for me and that there is a lot of other stuff in that cake which I don’t normally eat. For example, there is a lot of butter in the cake which I don’t normally eat, for the most part I’m whole foods, plant based, so I don’t eat animal products at all, but I’m in somebody’s house, I love Christmas cake, so I’m not going to refuse it.
If I was making my own Christmas cake I wouldn’t put any brandy in it. If I was making my own trifle I wouldn’t put any sherry or alcohol in it. If I get an alcohol free beer I will try and get one that has zero alcohol, I know you can’t get every minute drop of alcohol out of the alcohol free beer but I’m not bothered about that.
The whole point is that I’m not deliberating putting any more alcohol into my body or deliberately putting any animal products into my body, butter, fat or any of that type of stuff. I put the right types of fat in but that’s another story. So, I just wanted to add this footnote to make that clear.
Sophrosyne (n.) a healthy state of mind, characterised by self-control, moderation, and a deep awareness of one’s true self and resulting in true happiness
Until next time…
Onwards and Upwards!
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