[Sca-cooks] Binge drinking

[Terry Decker]

Can you produce individual consumption records for modern North America?

To get actual intake figures, you need to review household accounts or 
diaries where the author recounts his meals.  Both of these tend to track 
use in the upper classes and don't deal with the general populace.  They are 
also limited to records which may be spotty.

The studies I referred to were economic analyses of towns where enough tax 
and accounting records still exist to get a reasonably accurate statistical 
view of the flow and use of various goods and services.  If carefully 
reviewed, they might show percentage of use by class, but they won't give 
you truly accurate data on individual consumption, just as you can't 
accurately track individual consumption in North America even with the 
massive amounts of data we keep on individual sales.

Bear


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Radei Drchevich" <radei at moscowmail.com>


Statisrics are not a reliable measure of the actual intake.  Do you have
sources that indicate actual daily consumprion?

Not trying to be confrontaional or anything like that, I would really
like to know. Some people seem to take offense at how I phrase things, I
do not mean them that way, when I ask a questions it is really because I
would like to know.  So anyone that I have or may offend by
misunderstanding my intent, I am sorry.  Sometimes I just do not
communicate well.

modern numbers for north america say the average person drinks 12 gallons
of beer, 2 gallons of hard liquor, and 3 gallons of wine per year. That
is based on sales not actual person to person counts.

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: "Terry Decker"

  I don't know about the "binge." That suggests extended gaps
  between bouts of intoxication. The general use of alcohol in
  period sounds more like the steady imbibing of the alcoholic. One
  of the studies I read calculates that the average person drank a
  gallon of ale or beer per day or slightly under a pint an hour and
  that it was a large part of the day's calorie count. Besides,
  everyone knows binging is unhealthy while such drinking was
  healthy, contributing to the "phlegmatic" personality.

  Bear