Hello all,
Really did EU WHO say to reduce the amount of wine in Europe? Well, they didn’t.
The fact: the European section of the WHO (World Health Organization) has provided indications to reduce alcohol consumption by 10% by 2025. The final document, approved by all delegations, including Italians, is entitled "European framework for action on alcohol 2022-2025"
To do this, according to the WHO, it is necessary to act on a decrease in advertising, the indications on the label, an increase in taxation.
These indications, reported an article by Il Sole 24 Ore, are in contradiction, with a May document, produced by the European Parliament's Cancer Plan commission (BECA), which rejected the concept of 'no safe level' for wine. Actually, the document says just that, but this point wasn’t approved by EU Commission. According to this principle, there is no minimum level that is not harmful to health.
Among other things, the WHO document doesn’t mention wine but simply alcohol, and therefore all the drinks that contain it: beers, alcoholic drinks, spirits and of course wine. So the first piece of news to put back in the right place: the WHO has not attacked wine and wine-producing countries, it is giving indications to push to reduce the consumption of alcohol.
It is not a trivial distinction, but here in Italy we only see wine, and therefore we write that the WHO is against wine and against Italy.
Again a syllogism that leads to completely wrong conclusions.
Then, the second and mostly important argument: it is true that alcohol is bad for you, but as always it is a question of doses: the quantity of alcohol contained in a 13% bottle of wine is, in fact, 13% of 0.75 liters, and therefore 0.0975 liters, or 9.75 centiliters.
To sum it up, 1 liter of wine contains 13% of 100 cl, that is 13 cl of alcohol. A glass of wine contains from 10 to 15 cl of wine, and therefore between 1.3 and 1.9 cl of alcohol. This quantity corresponds to 1 Alcoholic Unit, which is equal to 12 grams of ethyl alcohol (ethanol). The recommendations of the Veronesi Foundation tell us that it is better not to exceed 2-3 glasses per day for men and 1-2 for women: this difference depends above all on the average weight, which for men is (in average) higher than that of women.
Once I have finished bringing proofs to support the wine, however, it is necessary to avoid falling into the opposite error, namely that, since it does not hurt, then wine is good for you.
No, wine is not good for you, because it contains alcohol which is dangerous for health.
Naturally a good wine, made as it should, will contain only alcohol as a harmful element, while a cheap pomace made with sachets or simply with unhealthy grapes and heavily treated with chemical fertilizers and fungicides will do much more harm because, in addition to alcohol, it contains who knows what will circulate in our body. Substances that will damage our health far more than alcohol ingested with two good glasses of wine.
Even the infamous argument about resveratrol that is good for fighting cardiovascular diseases, or at least is a useful antagonist, is poorly written news to induce bad decisions.
So there is malice and bad faith. A red wine contains about 2.8 mg / liter of resveratrol, while in case of treatment a dose of more than 25 mg is recommended, with a concentration higher than 10 mg per liter of blood. In practice, you should drink 8 to 9 liters of wine a day to see any effect of resveratrol on your health! In short, it is the usual story of quantities: even in red meat there are carcinogens, but you would have to eat several kilos a day for them to become really dangerous. In short, to feel good, the diet should be 8 kilos of meat a day washed down with at least 8 liters of red wine… (don’t try this!)
A diet that is naturally highly discouraged, don't you think?