wine

[svrn]

so if fermented foods are supposed to be good for you then why is wine considered bad for you? I understand that too much alcohol is damaging but wouldnt a raw wine just be considered another fermented food? What sets it apart from other fermented foods? Some say a glass a day is healthy.

Anyway, im going to get the best most natural wine I can find and experiment with small amounts. Im just gonna treat it as another fermented food.

[cherimoya_kid]

Try it.  If it works well for you, keep doing it.  Moderate alcohol consumption, 1-2 drinks a day, does seem to correlate with good health, according to a number of studies.

[CitrusHigh]

Yeah, the wine thing has thrown me for a loop too. Part of it is who the hell knows how it's processed, every vineyard/bottling facility will be different. You also have to factor in additives, what material the vats/casks are made out of, what kind of rearing protocol they use.

I like stellar vineyards stuff, but alcohol is a doozy for me so I drink only a handful of times a year and only super high quality ferments.

[Dorothy]

At least do organic without the added sulfites. Those really affect my brain badly more than any amount of alcohol does.
Phil made a whole thread on this just recently including what sources of wine are considered actually raw.

[svrn]

IM going to get the best available catergory which is "primordially farmed" from these guys. the guy at the wine shop said pretty much all wines are totally raw and that as long as its organic and vegan it should be good. I guess what they are fermented in may also be a cause for concern but i dont ask that of any other fermenter I buy from.

He said this wine was the best for what im looking for

http://www.aumcellars.com/

[CitrusHigh]

"These same friends (all of whom were well into their 80's) encouraged me and supported my ideals regarding farming organically - each sharing their own stories, professing that my ideology/technique was the same as when they farmed as kids.  None of them took pharmaceutical drugs; they all either played golf, tennis or chased the opposite sex; and the kicker was they all drank damn good wine!  Real wine… wine made from grapes that weren’t manipulated for a higher margin.  The wines they drank were made from the same guys they bumped into at the grocery store - the guys who were doing what they loved to do: make great wine!

 

Nowadays, these same wine brands are owned and operated by corporations that are owned by liquor distilleries and breweries half way around the globe.  Wine isn't what it used to be.  The wines our grandparents and great grandparents drank are not the same kinds of wines we find in the stores today.

 

Aum Cellars is the exception to the corporate watering down effect. We offer a precious alterative. Our wines are a modern version of what we once had. They are a primordial sustenance - An accumulation of knowledge passed down from our forefathers, respectfully paired with the scientific metaphysical discoveries of our generation. If you see food as medicine, then you will appreciate our belief that Aum wines are the evolutionary elixirs to help reach ones highest manifestation.  If those concepts don’t resonate with you, you can simply appreciate the deliciousness of Aum Cellar wines and come to your own conclusions as to why most people do not experience those annoying wine side effects (stuffy nose, body/head aches, ill feelings) after consuming Aum!

Namaste"

Pretty impressive troll, will you please let us know how it is? Would be nice to get the 'raw paleo' of wine!

[aLptHW4k4y]

The problem with alcohol is it can easily make you go for bad things.
I see it all the time with a lot of friends, e.g. they don't usually smoke, but after 1-2 glasses..
Or it can make you eat crappy food, or drive fast, or whatever.

[raw-al]

Alcohol is a poison. Believe what you like, but it will do harm.

[Dorothy]

Unless you are pretty flush - the expense of that particular wine and how hard they make it to buy it from them probably means that you (Troll) don't plan on drinking all that much right?

I've been wanting to try my hand at making fermented drinks (would it turn out to be wine I don't know) out of the wild grapes that grow here. I bought some more grape vines of different varieties to try growing too. I ferment most other things, makes sense that fermenting grapes if done correctly could be healthful. So much depends I think on how much you drink of it.

PaleoPhil's thread made an impact on my thinking in regard to ethanol.
http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/omnivorous-raw-paleo/fermented-fruit/msg95667/#msg95667

[svrn]

Alcohol is a poison. Believe what you like, but it will do harm.

so according to you, other fermented foods are fine, but fermenting grape juice is where you draw the line?

[Dorothy]

It's probably just the alcohol part Troll that Al is referring to - right Al? When I ferment my kombucha for instance I put a cloth on top to let the alcohol evaporate where the ones in the store they try to make it as alcoholic as they legally can in order to sell more.

Can you ferment grapes without it becoming alcoholic?

But Troll - ya gotta go see the videos that Phil posted of animals having a frat party with fermented fruit!

The thing that I thought was interesting is that animals including us as paleos had alcohol as part of our diets in fermenting fruits. Also, what Phil posted about how we probably evolved with it and that it might be an important part of our social abilities and survival was interesting. It might be that ethanol is part of our natural diet that we evolved to eat!

I think I'm supposed to eat nuts for instance even though there seems to be along list of bad things in them. I just don't eat too many and I assume that what's in them is better for me than what's bad in them and that when I have a strong immune system and digestive system that I can easily handle the bad parts in order to get the good parts.

There are so few things to eat that don't have "bad" or "poisonous" aspect to them - especially in excess.

Just my thoughts. 

[aLptHW4k4y]

so according to you, other fermented foods are fine, but fermenting grape juice is where you draw the line?

wine is 10%+ of alcohol, I don't think other fermented foods have that much

[CitrusHigh]

All ferments are not the same. Yeasts tend to make alcohol, bacteria not. So yogurt isn't going to produce much if any alcohol, whereas grapes, honey, etc will.

But as was said above, even Aajonus, who is wholly against toxins in most forms, says a little raw wine is ok once in a while. I'm extremely sensitive to Alchy in any form, but I did a ton of damage to myself when younger. I know that it is not pure poison 100% of the time because lots of my SAD friends drink tons of it, and other than a rare pimple, they seem to have great skin (though eventually the damage will be apparent) even though they drink loads of the stuff. If you indulge once a month, and in reasonable amounts, high quality ferments, you are probably not harming yourself and quite the opposite may be doing yourself a favor, since, like Cheri said, many studies seem to indicate it's healthful even on much larger scales.

As with everything, listen to your body, it will tell you sooner or later if it doesn't  like what you're doing to it.

[PaleoPhil]

the guy at the wine shop said pretty much all wines are totally raw

That's not what the info I found said and it doesn't make sense, given that some wines are labeled and advertised as raw ("non-mevushal" wines, for example) and others as not raw ("meshuval") by the very same vintner--see my threads:

http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/general-discussion/raw-alcoholic-beverages/msg94124/#msg94124

http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/omnivorous-raw-paleo/fermented-fruit/

Did he provide any sources?

There are so few things to eat that don't have "bad" or "poisonous" aspect to them - especially in excess.

Quite right. Unbenownst to most, even fruits reportedly contain tiny amounts of the plant's insecticides and fungicides. Every food contains small amounts of some toxin or other. It doesn't make them all inherently unhealthy. One of the common themes of nature, I'm learning, is that nature is characterized much less by absolutes than by complexity and grays.

[CitrusHigh]

Phil I had an 'aha!' moment the other day and realized the reason my honey fermented so easily when I was using it for sweetener with water added is because I was opening it once or twice per day to add it to my coffee. That was introducing fresh air and facilitating the process. If you just pretend you're going to add it to your coffee each day, open it, wave it around a bit and then close it back up, I bet it will ferment in to mead no problem.

[raw-al]

so according to you, other fermented foods are fine, but fermenting grape juice is where you draw the line?

Small amounts of alcohol are fine and can be useful to carry nutrients to the cells, but typically wine is not consumed in tsp amounts. 

[PaleoPhil]

Thanks for the additional info, Thoth. Presumably then, just leaving it open all the time would ferment even quicker, right?

Most of the studies I've seen reported benefits from 1-3 glasses of wine per day, not tsps, and they tend to call it "moderate wine consumption." It's hard to prove one way or the other, though, and some people are far more prone to alcoholism than others and not all alcoholic beverages or wines are the same, so YMMV. That's why personal experience is key in this and many other cases--the science will never be 100% proven either way and there is so much variation between individuals and wines.

Many hunter gatherer and other traditional peoples, wild orangutans, wild bears and other animals apparently prefer fermented ripenable fruits over nonfermented, especially when it produces alcohol. It doesn't make sense that nature would cause multiple species to prefer the foods that are most highly toxic and kill them.

Here's another thread on possible positive aspects of raw alcoholic foods and fruits:

http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/omnivorous-raw-paleo/ketones-from-fruits-bark-and-alcohol-say-what/msg96159/#msg96159

[Dorothy]

FYI - in the studes a "glass" equals 5 ounces. I don't know about your wine glasses - but for mine that really means 1/2 a glass to 1 1/2 glasses - not 1-3 glasses.

[PaleoPhil]

I don't know about your tsps, but mine contain less than 5-15 ounces.  Good to know what the actual total ounces are. I actually do use small glasses myself, and tend to only pour about 4-5 oz. of mead at a time. I've noticed that Asians tend to drink sake in small glasses too. I don't care much for wine glasses. Not sure how significant it is, but interesting coincidence, thanks.

Another issue with the studies is the chicken-and-egg problem. Are the people healthier just because they're drinking wine, or do already-healthier people tend to drink more wine than less healthy people?

[CitrusHigh]

Guess there's only one way to find out huh Phil! Makes sense that something like honey would ferment in the open air, but the only way to know is to try. I'll add some water to honey from our bees which I know is raw and leave it open. The only thing I'm concerned about is evaporation of the moisture, I would think it would happen fast in a sugar, especially one with biological activity. Also, like Dorothy said in reference to something else earlier, you might lose the alcohol in the process too, which would be a plus to me, but probably not most people.

[PaleoPhil]

Can you please remind me how much honey and how much water you mix together?

[CitrusHigh]

I didn't measure anything, hold on a sec, I'll do it in the same jar I did last time and see what the proportions look like.

EDIT: Alright, the jar doesn't say on it, but it looks like a half pint mason jar to me. I put in 4 Tbsp honey and then filled it half way with water and that's how I did it last time. But I can't say that that matters and I would think you could saturate the water with a lot more honey. Of course I also can't say that it doesn't matter because that is what worked for me last time and I don't really have anything to compare it with. I'm going to give it a go again and leave the top off this time, we'll see what happens, hopefully you'll keep us abreast of your experiments too!

[CitrusHigh]

OMG, I just read the 'real' way to make mead, yuck first of all, and second, what a pain in the ass. I don't know if this 'just add water' technique is producing mead, but it is producing some kind of alcoholic brew, because there is no doubt, it is strong stuff when done, to the point that towards the end it was getting unpleasant in my coffee.

This time around, variables in my experiment are as follows...

-I'm using our own honey from our own bees, whereas before I was using my favorite local honey by Homestead Apiaries, awesome stuff, never met anyone who wasn't thrilled with it.
-Using same water, our exquisite well water, but this time structured because I told it I loved it when I bottled it last night, and wrote it on the label, 'I love you'.
-Also told the honey I loved it just for funsies...and cuz I do!
-Leaving uncapped at all times, temp will vary with room temps, though I will have some paper towel rubber banded over it to keep flies and ants out, whereas last time I had the standard lid on there and it was uncapped every day or so, at least once to pour in to my coffee.

[raw-al]

Most of the studies I've seen reported benefits from 1-3 glasses of wine per day, not tsps, and they tend to call it "moderate wine consumption." It's hard to prove one way or the other, though, and some people are far more prone to alcoholism than others and not all alcoholic beverages or wines are the same, so YMMV. That's why personal experience is key in this and many other cases--the science will never be 100% proven either way and there is so much variation between individuals and wines.

Many hunter gatherer and other traditional peoples, wild orangutans, wild bears and other animals apparently prefer fermented ripenable fruits over nonfermented, especially when it produces alcohol. It doesn't make sense that nature would cause multiple species to prefer the foods that are most highly toxic and kill them.

Here's another thread on possible positive aspects of raw alcoholic foods and fruits:

http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/omnivorous-raw-paleo/ketones-from-fruits-bark-and-alcohol-say-what/msg96159/#msg96159

Phil, now I know that you're not prone to saying things you cannot back up... however...... I think you might have a bit of trouble on this one.

As we all know, studies are frequently done to prove the predetermined truth. The truth that the company or country (France) wishes you to believe.

The people that I know who drink amounts like that, end up at a certain point in their life in the care of physicians of some variety or another with serious issues. The pilots I know who consume like that have lost their medicals or come very close to it in their 50's. You can't fake your way through a medical. Then they suddenly 'get religion' and nary a drop of whatever passes their lips namore.

This is not a moral judgement of mine, I don't have a horse in the race.

I doubt that hunter gatherers or bears drank 1 - 3 glasses of wine per day. 

The only case of consuming fermented fruit is the one that I saw on the youtube  African Animals Getting Drunk From Ripe Marula Fruit

[Dorothy]

The people that you know that drink one glass of wine a day (5 ounces) end up with serious issues Al? Pilots lose their licenses?

How many people Al have you known that drink one glass of wine a day and have ended up so sick? Are you sure it was the one glass of wine a day and not other things? How many of those people are like Troll and eat a raw paleo diet and how many eat cakes and cookies and lots of fried foods too?

This time Al you are refuting the scientific data that Phil posted with incredibly unspecific anecdotes from your life. It's like if I said, "I knew this guy who ate raw eggs and ended up in the hospital" or the like.

5 - 15 ounces is the range. Please give us specifically how much the people you knew drank, how often, what kind of drink and what diseases you think they suffered from drinking it.

You know I love ya Al. This one though - gotta ask you for more hard data.