BEER AS A FOOD.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVII, Issue 1009, 8 July 1909, Page 22

BEER AS A FOOD.

ITS NUTRITIVE VALUE. The results of an impartial investigation conducted by the “ Hospital ” newspaper into the physiological and dietetic properties of beer are briefly summarised on another page. It is a report which will be read with interest and pleasure by brewers, as it successfully demonstrates the value of malt liquor as a nutritive beverage. In the simplest possible way it decides that the claim sometimes put forward on behalf of beer that it is “ liquid bread” is quite a valid claim. Contrasting it with the stronger alcoholic beverages, the report states that whereas in the case of some wines and all spirits, the only main material is alcohol, in the case of beer only a small part of its nutritive value is represented by its alcoholic content. Summarising their preliminary remarks, the authors of the report assert that

beer is, par excellence, the nutritive alcoholic beverage, and they add: “ The alcohol forms only part of its value, and the proportion of alcohol any given beer contains in no sense measures its strength. It is possible with some well-made lager beers to have a full nutritive value combined with a low alcoholic strength. When a man drinks good beer he drinks and eats at the same time, just as when he eats a bowl of soup. The terms eat and drink are curiously but inconsistently used as connoting the difference between what is merely quenching our thirst and what is actually consuming nourishment. A man might more appropriately be said to eat beer than to eat certain kinds of soup, or indeed watermelon." Another interesting comparison made by the “ Hospital ” Commissioners is between beer and tea. In every cup of tea, they assert, about 99 per cent, consists of water, the remaining part of drugs—namely, an alkaloid caffeine and an astringent principle tannin, and an aromatic principle or volatile oil. Of every glass of beer from 89 per cent, to 94 per cent, consists of water, the remaining 11 percent. to 6 per cent, consisting of from 2 per cent, to 6 per cent, of alcohol, of from 1 per cent, to 5 per cent, of maltose, or malt sugar, from 2 percent. to 3 per cent, of dextrin (the nutrient material contained in toast and biscuits and bread crust), and

0.5 per cent, of proteid or nutriment of the nature of meat.