Friday, August 29, 2008

Eating while drinking: how much is too much?

A friend recently mentioned how I always feed them when we drink. Not just a little, they say, but a LOT and how that makes them comfortable to drink with me on a week night or before a day that they need to get things done.

It got me thinking how often I usually involve food with drinking. Regardless if its beer, wine, liquor, whatever, I usually try to always have dinner as well as late night snacks available. Recently, at 1:30 in the morning, (read=we just got home from the bar and were drunk) I realized we didn’t eat that much for dinner and I boiled some noodles and warmed up some marinara sauce from the fridge. Yes, that’s right, I made pasta at 1:30AM. But, I bet we all felt better the next day because of it. (Particularly with the aid of my hangover cures, posted earlier.)

For the record, eating doesn’t help you actually “sober up”- it has very little effect on your blood alcohol content. However, it can help absorb some of that alcohol from your stomach and usually lessons the hangover. So, while I don’t recommend eating a cheeseburger to sober you up enough to get behind the wheel, at least have comfort in the fact that eating does help the next day. (Hopefully enough to burn off those late night calories.!)

But I wonder, do we really serve that much more food than everyone else while drinking? Usually, once we exceed 3 drinks, its time to serve a near full-meal. Is this really that odd? Is it too much food? I suppose, glancing at my waistline, that perhaps the Lush way of eating and drinking is overdoing it.

1 comment:

LucyinStLou said...

I don't think that's too much food. If you are drinking that much it should be over a longer period of time and involve food. That's just better for you! As long as you run the next morning like Mr. Luce, you'll be golden. Or at least walk the whippets a minimum of 10 miles a week then you less golden, but at least bronze.