Mainstream healthcare folks are ‘all for’ non-alcoholic beverages. But some members of the medical community beg to disagree. For reasons you may not have considered. Are non-alcohol beers encour-aging kids to drink?
On the surface, non-alcoholic wines, beers and coolers, not to mention mocktails, seem to exemplify the proverbial win-win situation. But doctors are warning, all may not be as well as it seems…
Enter, America’s Doctor
No, I’m not referring to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the face and voice of the Centers for Disease Control. He shot to fame as the guy you loved to trust during the COVID crisis. And he’s become a medical legend and household name. But Fauci’s retired, now. And another well-known physician has ascended his throne. I speak of none other than CNN’s go-to expert on all things medical, Dr. Sanjay Gupta…
Unasked, unanswered questions
One involves the subtle difference between ‘Zero-Alcohol’ and Non-Alcohol’ beverages. Gupta cau-tions, if you’re a recovering alcoholic or want to observe religious or cultural restrictions, you have to go for ‘zero-alcohol’ to ‘remain totally abstinent’. While that may seem counter-intuitive, he reveals ‘non-alcohol’ beverages may still have as much as 0.5 percent ethanol in them. It’s a matter of how they’re made and processed.
But there’s more…
Medical and social advocates are now raising awareness of a related issue: that of underage kids drinking these beverages.
“Part of the appeal is that these drinks taste, look and smell the same as alcoholic beverages,” Gupta points out. “As a result, [it] gives young people a chance to ‘practice drinking’.”
That, he suggests, may lead to kids, “creating a drinking culture at a young age.”
There’s proof
In japan, average folks drink a lot. Some much more than they should. You can buy alcoholic bever-ages at supermarkets and corner stores – even from publicly-sited vending machines.
The general permissiveness of Japanese drinking culture does not discourage kids from consuming non-alcohol beverages. And many do indulge.
“Twenty to 30 percent of grade school students in Japan [say they] drink zero-proof beverages,” Gupta says. “Those who do, say they are more likely to eventually drink the real thing.”
In Australia, kids who drink the alcohol-free alternatives are 2.5 times more likely to drink the alco-holic versions. We hope they mean, when they’re older. Nevertheless…
‘Drinking culture’
We always have common sense and our own experience to fall back on, as a guide. And mine tells me Gupta is onto something.
Kids ‘sneaking a beer’, or asking older folks to buy it for them, has always been part of European and North American drinking culture.
And beer, being less alcoholic, has always been considered a less dangerous alternative to ‘hard li-quor’ and even wine. How many times have you heard someone politely decline an offer of whiskey, saying “I’ll just have a beer…”
My take
All that said… The prevailing ‘culture’ and social contexts we all experience as kids conspire to draw us into adult drinking culture. And it stands to reason that under-age drinking cultures such as those in Japan and Australia just give kids a head start. When they reach ‘legal drinking age’, they are al-ready conditioned to believe beer is ‘okay’, even if wine and especially spirits may be problematic.
I may be old and out of touch with the younger generations on ‘drinking culture’. But I’ve always seen beer as an adult thing. And I assumed kids today still felt as I always did…
I still think that giving a kid a tiny taste of beer or wine when they first show interest is a good thing: they’ll almost certainly grimace, spit and say ”Yuk!” They’ll be expecting something sweet, like the sodas they’re used to. But with beer, they’ll get an unwelcome, tart, musty surprise. With wine, they’ll get an acidic, alcohol-harsh shock. And that should be enough to dissuade them from trying booze again until they’re at least out of high school!
~ Maggie J.