It seems like every other day there’s a new article extolling the benefits of red wine (or white wine, or all the wine). I see all my friends sharing them back and forth on each other’s timelines and being like, “time for a girls’ night!” and to be honest, I feel a little left out. It’s not that I don’t like wine — I do. It’s just that my go-to celebration drink is whiskey, not wine … and you never see articles floating around about the health benefits of whiskey.
Until now. Delightfully, MSN kicked off 2018 with an article about how whiskey is as good for you as red wine — and in fact, it might actually be better.
In a speech at the EuroMedLab conference in 2005, Dr. Jim Swan, who, granted, is a consultant to the drinks industry, reported that whiskey contains more ellagic acid (a free-radical fighting antioxidant) than red wine. “There has been much in the news about the health benefits of antioxidants in red wine. By contrast, very little has been said about malt whisky distillery science,” he said. “However, research has shown that there are even greater health benefits to people who drink single malt whiskies. Why? Single malt whiskies have more ellagic acid than red wine.”
Okay, so Dr. Swam’s research might be a little biased. But there are plenty of other studies proving that whiskey is good for everything from curing the common cold to preventing ischemic strokes … and the best news is, whiskey is a good choice for everyone (except children, obviously).
Whiskey is known to significantly improve your body’s ability to regulate insulin and glucose, making it the ideal choice for diabetics. It also helps prevent dementia, boosts your immune system, and aids in weight loss.
That last one is mostly because whiskey is sugar-free, which is one of the reasons it’s my personal favorite. Even just one glass of wine tends to give me a dull headache, but more than one guarantees I’ll wake up in the morning cursing grapes and searching desperately for ibuprofen.
Whiskey never has that effect, which might be the result of either its low sugar content or lack of tannins (PS: everything I know about wine I learned from Sideways). Personally, I believe it’s the lack of tannins because the real reason whiskey is my all-time favorite is that it tastes delicious with chocolate.
I’m not even kidding, whiskey and chocolate is the best flavor combination in existence. It’s so good that I don’t really even like to drink whiskey unless I’m also eating chocolate. (I do, however, like to eat chocolate no matter what I’m drinking. Chocoholism is a thing, y’all.) So I guess you could say that the weight-loss power of whiskey is nullified by pairing it with large amounts of chocolate, but hey. I’m still boosting my immune system and keeping dementia at bay, and enjoying the heck out of the process. So raise a glass to whiskey!
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And today we celebrate...