[Sca-cooks] Graham Kerr and alcohol

[kingstaste at mindspring.com]

> Didn't he stop using so many flammable hydrocarbons in his cookery?

yes indeedy... to the point of being holier-than-thou and boring about it.
cailte

I think that what happened is his wife Trini got very ill, maybe even went
through AA for drinking.  I don't think he ever went through the program
himself (based on what they sort-of said on a Biography I saw about him
once), but he may have had other health problems and quit when she went
through it.  He uses de-alcolized wines now instead of anything alcoholic.
I was watching one of his newer shows the other day and he had an MD on that
was the Chief of Preventative Medicine at Boston Hospital.  They spent a
good 7 minutes on the French Paradox (why the French have worse diets, smoke
more, and have less heart disease - largely due to continual moderate red
wine consumption), what substances in wine do, the fact that it would take
two bottles of grape juice to get the benefits of one glass of red wine,
etc.  He really stressed that there was so many problems with alcohol abuse
that doctors are loathe to advise patients to drink it, but that ONE glass a
day EVERY day can reduce cholesterol, risk of stroke and heart attack, and
more.  He said you can't save it up for the weekend and get drunk, the
anti-oxidants and other beneficial constituents are out of your system in a
day or so, and over-doing it is harmful. Graham asked about whether the
alcohol itself had benefits, and the Dr. said yes, it did deliver things
more quickly to the cells.  However, if you had a history of problems (at
this point Graham said he was sensitive to it because of problems in his
family), then de-alccolized was a substitute you could use, just not as
effective.  It was very well presented, and I was fairly impressed at the
amount of time they spent explaining it.
Christianna