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Beer is fattening, say fat beer-swilling readers

Can't raise the dead, though

Letters Our astounding revelation that beer is not in fact fattening raised a few eyebrows among readers who thought we may have cooked the book on this one. Alright, we confess we omitted a few small details which didn't fit our view of beer as the elixir of the gods:

Hmm - nice bit of spin by the BBPA (Alistair Campbell doesn't work for them, by any chance?) but they are glossing over the fact that the calories quoted are for 100ml of each fluid, and who the hell drinks 100ml of beer? Translated into real-world quantities (1 pint of beer vs. 125ml of wine) then the tables are nicely turned: 233 cals for the beer vs. 96 cals for the wine. Oh dear...

James Pickett


Want an absolute load. Hilarious.

What they don't mention is that very few people go out on the lash and drink 8 pints of milk. Something I think, through personal experience, may have something to do with the fattening nature of beer.

Andy Astrand


I saw the BBC news story your article linked to, and I don't know if it's bad reporting by the BBC or just a bad story, but this is quite a load of... well, you know.

The article speaks of "alcohol" being fattening (or not). As anyone who has ever been near a low-carb diet can tell you, it isn't the alcohol in these drinks that can put the pounds on you, it's all the leftover carbohydrates from the grape, the grain, or whatever else you care to distill the alcohol from. I know from both science and personal experience that I can drink whisky and lose weight just fine, but that beer (and to a lesser extent wine) will put that weight right back on.

Of course, this is the same BBC that reported earlier this week that Hans Bethe died at the age of 98, having been born in 1902 (they have, sadly, since corrected his birthdate to 1906). If they can't even get their basic maths right the first time, you can bet that we can't trust them on anything REALLY important, such as beer. Please, my friend, check your sources!

And in the meantime, make mine a double Laphroaig (no ice!).

Respectfully yours,

Diane Capewell.


You're buying into the assumption that "all calories are created equal". This is wrong. Beer does "food partitioning" towards storage, which results in the beer calories being stored as fat. Wine is supposedly better on this account (I do not know the exact details.)

Eivind, *realistic* beer drinker.


As I have been prone to point out to friends who claim to have beer guts, I used to drink loads and am in no way now or have ever been fat. However, I am vegan. Its the dead meat sloshing around in your gut that gives rise the the so called "beer gut".

regards Tim Llewellyn


Hm, and one more thing about beer, the hops it's brewed with adds oestrogen derivatives into the beer which makes your body pile on the pounds and grow boobs... so there we go... Pass me the vodka. Cheers, Ralf


Blimey. Does this therefore mean that beer is in fact an organic breast augmentation treatment, as well as curing cancer? Is there no end to its miracle properties?

One thing, though, we're sure it can't do is raise people from the dead. Unlike the Kentucky teen who menaced his school with an undead army and got cuffed for his trouble:

Is this what reporting has come to? What a poor example of journalism. You already have the kid convicted before there has even been a trial. If you have ever seen any of the first person shooter video games available these days you would know that his writings were likely loosely based on the same basic story line as seen in many of those games. One would think that somewhere along the line, someone with a little bit of common sense would have realized that his story was based totally outside of reality. It's not like you can go to the local hobby store and buy a zombie making kit. I find it completely mind boggling that your editors would allow such narrow minded idiocy to be placed within the columns of their paper. The worst part of it is that a judge would allow such nonsense to proceed, and then raise his bail too. Sounds like somebody needs to add a little chlorine to the gene pool. Just when you thought Kentucky was catching up to the rest of the civilized world you see garbage like this printed. So how does it feel to be judged by someone who has no insight into your life as to what kind of person you are based on a single incident? Oh, but it's different, you say. I submit to you that your story and his are not really that much different. Both are based on a reality that does not exist. However, the biggest difference is that his story was not written under the guise of being a story that was intended for people to believe. People tend to believe what they see in print. Next time you write something you ought to at least try to protect your credibility and write something worth reading.

Brian DeBusk


I seldom feel the need to comment on any news story, but this one really takes the cake.

I honestly wonder what kind of podunk, hee haw, hillbilly dumbass you really have to be for arresting and jailing anyone for writing an obvious (based on the description in your story) work of fiction. What's next? Can I expect to see the sets of Stargate-SG1 invaded by the authorities? After all, the recent story lines have had not one, but two deadly threats to all of humanity.

If I build a Replicator out of legos, can I expect the FBI to gun medown in my driveway one morning?

Shame on the judge, shame on the prosecutors, shame on the police and shame on my fellow Americans for tolerating this silly crap.

Name supplied


Y'know this kind of stupidity on the part of the 'authorities' is causing real harm.

Back around the time of 9/11 i believed that there was such a threat as terrrorism, but due to the over-reaction to anything people say or do and the draconian laws rushed in to lock people up without trial (on both sides of the pond), have led me to believe that there is no such thing as terrorism.

There may be people who are fighting for what they believe in and they may be using guerrilla tactics AND they may be targeting you and me, but more and more i am starting to think "terrrorism" is a government created threat to keep us all afraid and consuming.

Is a terrorist just someone who disagress with the current status quo? If so then perhaps we could use an old term for this as it has come up in history before, .... a heretic. So who gets to be the spanish inquisition then.. .. (and its not the spanish).

Jeremy


Well that's one in the eye for all you namby-pamby liberals, who've been running around fretting that every piece of "terror legislation" passed by the government to protect it's citizens will be used irresponsibly.

It's for your own good, and for the good of society, that dangerous and twisted individuals such as this miscreant student are incarcerated.

Just let the Thought Police do their work. Besides, we've stripped away your rights so there's nothing you can do about it.

If you're afraid, you must have good reason to be - it will be your door we knock on next...

Dr. Sarcasmo


And with that we at Vulture Central are off for a few breast-boosting, cancer-busting pints. Have a good weekend and remember: El Reg advises responsible drinking. ®

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