200 Diet Wise
Alcoholic drinks
It is not widely appreciated that alcoholism is principally a food allergy
problem, a surprising insight I gained from the late, great Theron G.
Randolph. What the addict really craves is his or her allergy food, not
alcohol; it is simply that the alcohol gives the dose more kick. The real ‘fix’ is
with the ingredients, such as corn, wheat, sugar and yeast. Malt of course is
sprouted and fermented barley (but may sometimes refer to wheat or rye).
All alcoholic drinks contain brewer’s yeast. Wine otherwise contains
only grapes. This is the reason you rarely hear of alcoholics who drink only
wine: the alcohol content of beer may be lower, but there is nothing in
wine that gives the same grains and sugar “lift” as lager, stout, pils and
beers. Spirits give a bigger effect still, and many alcoholics soon progress to
whisky, vodka and gin. I demonstrated this to my own satisfaction nearly
thirty years ago and have found nothing to change my mind.
I did this by giving alcoholics shots of pure ethyl alcohol: it didn’t
satisfy their cravings, whereas doses of the appropriately administered
foodstuffs, such as wheat or corn, immediately relieved the withdrawal
symptoms.
Something else I learned, following from Randolph’s original
teaching: people react differently to different alcoholic beverages. A person
may be ill on whisky, fine on gin, suicidal on rum and so on. It is very
important to identify a safe tipple, if possible.
Casebook 12.
A man I met in Spain, middle-aged and very portly, was exceptionally fond
of vodka. Let’s call him Abe (he was Jewish). Abe had had several heart
attacks and considered himself lucky to be alive; every day he woke and
thanked God with a prayer at sunrise. But a very short conversation with
him (at his own bar!) revealed he was almost certainly intolerant of wheat
and that this was the cause of most of his health problems, including the
obesity. I pointed out that most modern spirits are made from wheat or corn
(or both) and that even vodka was no longer normally made from potato.
Drinking spirits when you have a wheat allergy is a bad idea, I explained to
him.
Well, Abe was a connoisseur of vodka and had over fifty brands on
his shelves, including many very expensive authentic Russian vodkas. So we
went through all the bottles, then and there, and I had him remove the ones
that were not pure potato. That left fewer than a dozen.