A California college professor has finally settled the age-old debate as to which is healthier: wine or beer.
Both contain antioxidants, but when it comes to B vitamins, protein and nutrients, it’s a landslide victory for what Benjamin Franklin once called “proof that God loves us.”
Charlie Bamforth, professor of brewing sciences at the University of California, Davis, told NPR that beer has more selenium, phosphorus, niacin, silicon and fiber than wine.
This is why, as retired Kaiser Permanente doctor Arthur Klatsky said, beer’s nutritional value is much more comparable to actual food than that of wine or liquor.
Wine is famed for its resveratrol, a molecule said to increase one’s lifespan.
But wine doesn’t have enough of it to pose a significant influence, and wine’s antioxidants don’t get absorbed as much as those from beer, according to Bamforth.
If you’re only looking out for carbohydrates and calories, however, wine is the clear winner.
A 12-ounce bottle of craft beer could have as many calories as four glasses of wine, and beer with only 5 percent alcohol content contains nearly 10 times the amount of carbohydrates as a 5-ounce glass of wine.
Most of the calories from craft beer, which tend to have higher alcohol contents, come from alcohol and carbohydrates, both of which make the product sweeter and more flavorful.
Yet neither are the primary reasons heavy beer drinkers tend to have big bellies.
Bamforth says that beer bellies are the result of unhealthy routines; an overweight beer drinker also probably has unhealthy eating habits and an inactive lifestyle.
But the brewers shot themselves in the foot when they came out with ‘low-carb’ beer, implying that everything else they made was ‘high-carb.’
Another popular misconception about beer is that mass-produced drinks like Budweiser are not as healthy as craft beers, despite the latter seeming more “organic.”
Mass-produced beers are usually made with natural sugars and grains and contain little if any artificial ingredients.
If you’re trying to stave off disease by way of alcohol, Klatsky recommends no more than two to three drinks a day if you’re a man and one or two for women.
And by one “drink,” he means a 5-ounce serving of wine or a 12-ounce serving of a beer with 5 percent alcohol content.
Just don’t overdo it. Unless you want the opposite effect.
