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Diabetes Diet

Why I Drink

“East Coast elitist” is not a label that even Sarah Palin could pin on me. But I am no “Joe Six-Pack American” either. In fact, after drinking my fill of German beer for the three years I lived in Bavaria as a soldier and student, I have despised American beer.

No way could a “mountain boy” like me be elitist. I grew up in the mountains, and once when I went back to visit my boyhood home, a guy there pinned that label on me. It fits me perfectly.

One of my so-called girlfriends once said that she liked me only when I was hiking in the mountains or stoned. I broke my addiction to pot more than 20 years ago, but my addiction to hiking in the mountains is just getting stronger as I get even more into photography.

Since I don’t drink beer, what else could I possibly drink? Just three beverages.

Water
When I’m hiking in the mountains, water is my only drink. Except when I run out, it’s always water that I have filtered at home with my Brita. If I do run out of filtered water, I purify it with my SteriPEN Journey, a 4-ounce device that uses ultraviolet light to destroy waterborne microbes, like Giardia and Cryptosporidium.

A big advantage of water over just about anything else that we drink is that it has a glycemic index of zero. It won’t raise our blood glucose at all.

But, as I wrote in my first book, The New Glucose Revolution: What Makes My Blood Glucose Go Up…and Down?, it’s not true that you have to drown yourself in the stuff. There’s an old urban myth that you should drink at least eight glasses of water a day. While you will see this advice repeated time and again, it lacks any scientific proof.

It looks like the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Research Council started the whole thing in 1945. That’s when the board recommended that we consume about “1 milliliter of water for each calorie of food.” That works out to roughly two to two-and-a-half quarts per day. But most people seem to have missed its next sentence, that “most of this quantity is contained in prepared foods.”

Where does that leave us? When we are thirsty, water remains our best choice. Even when we are hungry, having a drink of water is a great idea. It can help us feel fuller and therefore less likely to overeat. This goes a long way toward keeping our blood glucose under control.

Coffee
Unlike water, coffee is hardly a necessity of life. It’s a pleasure.

Most Americans make their coffee far too weak, closer to dishwater than to real coffee. I use one-half cup of beans per 10 ounces of water, which may be too much for most people, but consider it a goal.

And many of us pollute it with cream and/or sugar, which only makes sense when people serve you otherwise undrinkable coffee. Doing that also adds calories that few of us need.

At least, when we prepare coffee properly it’s a pleasure. Making a good cup of coffee happens to be one of the most difficult things that we do in the kitchen.

I think that I finally got it. The water we use for making our coffee is the most important ingredient. That’s because coffee is mostly water. I never use water straight from the tap and certainly not distilled water. The key is to filter it, which is even better than buying plastic bottles of mineral water, which contribute to environmental pollution.

While I grew up thinking that Yuban coffee was the best, my tastes have changed a bit. I like a dark roast, but one that’s not burnt. That’s why I prefer Peet’s.

I’ve drunk practically every single origin coffee and hundreds of blends — everything from Jamaica Blue Mountain and Kona coffees to African, Middle Eastern, Asian, and South American ones. My all-time favorite is one that even many coffee blenders have never heard of, Sulawesi-Kalosi. Peet’s quite correctly describes it as, “Rich, full body; moderate, well-balanced acidity; and a multidimensional aromatic character with prominent herbal, nutty, and pleasantly sweet woody notes.” All true.

Besides making sure that the coffee we drink is fresh and stored properly (in the dark, but certainly not in the refrigerator or freezer), the biggest favor we can do ourselves is to invest in a high-quality burr grinder. Coffee that we grind right before adding water to it is much richer.

I currently use a simple paper filter. Many people prefer a French press, which I have and once used and may again some day. Those are the two top methods.

Then, of course, we have to boil the filtered water and add it to the cup. This turns out to be the lesson that I had to learn most recently.

While this sounds simple, it’s not. After boiling the water, we have to let it cool down. Since where I live is more than a mile high — where water comes to a boil at a lower temperature than sea level — I figured that I really didn’t need to wait. Wrong.

The taste of the coffee comes out much more strongly when I let it cool down to close to 180 degrees. That takes about 3 minutes here.

Finally, we need to serve it properly. Serving it in a paper cup is gross. But I go even a step further. Ever since Carl Lau told me about 10 years ago that he thinks that coffee tastes better in a fine bone China tea cup, I tried it and agree.

Taste is one thing. Health is another. I wouldn’t be telling you this if I didn’t know that drinking coffee is good for our health.

Scientists have studied coffee as much as anything we consume. Some early studies indicated that it might be problematic. But recent studies are practically unanimous that drinking three or four cups of coffee a day are good for us. Maybe it’s all the antioxidants that it has.

Alcohol
While I drink coffee for pleasure, I drink alcohol for my health. That is at least partly true.

Hard liquor does contain a few calories, unlike water or black unsweetened coffee. One shot of 25 grams has about 50 calories.

Studies by Barbara Rolls and others show that when we take our food in liquid form rather than in a solid one, we consume more calories that day. To keep my weight in check that’s one of the big reasons why I otherwise avoid drinking any calories.

I do enjoy my liquor. But not as much as my coffee, because I don’t drink as much of it.

As we all know, drinking a lot of liquor can have terrible consequences. But many of us think that drinking no liquor is healthier than drinking a little. Strange as it seems, that’s wrong, according to many published studies that I reviewed years ago. This seems to be especially true for people with diabetes.

The best advice seems to be that women do best with one drink a day and men with two. The difference is something to do with hormones, or size, or both.

When I learned that alcohol was good for me, I set out to find the best stuff. Since I dislike beer and don’t like wine well enough to finish a bottle before it turns to vinegar, I settled on my favorite hard liquor, Scotch.

Not just any Scotch. The best Scotch is single malt Scotch whisky. Since I drink so little, I want to drink the best. But which of these is the very best?

To find out I started with Michael Jackson’s Complete Guide to Single Malt Scotch. This book by a great connoisseur reviewed more than 800 single malts.

Dutifully, I bought and drank at least one bottle of every single malt that he gives top scores to. It was a lot of work but worth it.

For me a clear favorite emerged years ago, Talisker. Its nose, Mr. Jackson wrote, is “pungent, smoke-accented, rounded.” Its palate is “smoky, malty-sweet, with sourness and a very big pepperiness developing.” Its finish is “very peppery, huge, long.”

He called it “one of the most individualistic of single malts,” which is a good fit for me. You may label me as an individualistic mountain boy, but not as an East Coast elitist.

This article is based on an earlier version of my article published by HealthCentral.

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  • David Mendosa at

    Dear Kit,

    Thank you for your consideration! I looked at Sweet Maria’s many years ago, but forgot about it.

    Best regards,

    David

  • Kit Emory at

    Interesting about French press coffee as my LDL has been increasing as I hit “middle age,” as happens to most women. I highly recommend to coffee fanatics – David you should consider this! – roasting your own beans. You can get a roaster for under $100 and raw beans can be very inexpensive per pound. We get organic, sustainably farmed beans from all over the world and our coffee is beloved of all our friends (we give it as Xmas gifts!).

    Just to share, as I have no personal stake in this whatsoever, but http://www.sweetmarias.com will suck you into the world of home roasting delightfully. Deans Beans is another wonderful site. Coffee will never be the same, I promise you.

  • DJ Rainer at

    People should know that unfiltered coffee (French press, Greek/Turkish, and to some extent even Espresso (although the relatively small volume here minimizes the problem) all increase LDL cholesterol, due to the diterpines cafestol and kahweol. Stick to the filtered coffee–the erstwhile percolator also “filters” through the grounds themselves, but quel bon?

  • David Mendosa at

    Dear Juan,

    Thank you so much for your thoughtful message. I’m especially pleased that you have such a great motivation to control your diabetes.

    Best regards,

    David

  • Juan Enamorado at

    Hi David,

    Today I came back to your site after discovering it a while back. I am highly impressed and will study it more and more. That you are not taking medication for diabetes jumps out. That is a dream of mine.

    David, I feel for you in your lost of Catherine. My heart feels for you. My previous wife, Anita, died October 2005 and her last months were very painful for her. She also was a great woman.

    Three other things that I will do.
    Chana Dal. I believe I may have found a little store in Gaithersburg, MD, which might carry it.
    Hiking. I now walk and jog (but not much). I will strive to develop the habit for hiking. I am sure I will do it more often since it is much more enjoyable.
    Talisker. Like with you, beer and wine are not my cup of alcohol. Maybe I can reward my taste buds with your favorite scotch (I will need to add to my income to start doing this).

    Just one more thing, David. You lived in MD. Like you, I had resided in your general geographic area there (34 years in Gaithersburg, Montgomery County). I moved to Spring Grove, PA and have been here for the last 1-1/2 years. After Anita’s death I was devastated. I thought I was going to die. Then I met Ora. I met Orie through Chemistry.com. Like Catherine, she also in an Angel. I owe it to her, as well as to myself, to improve my health and to live longer. That is one major reason for my researching and studying your site. Thank you very much for it.

    Best to you, David,
    Juan

  • David Mendosa at

    Dear Bob,

    Sorry to mislead you about where I live. One reason why no one could label me as a part of the East Coast elite is because I live in Colorado now. I did live in Maryland until 1977 — in Potomac, Silver Spring, and University Park, all suburbs of DC.

    I never drink more than a couple of ounces of Scotch per day. The experts tell me that more leads to problems. Also, the Talisker is too expensive to drink a lot!

    BTW, the price you and I are paying is exactly the same, although many stores sell it for a lot more.

    Best regards,

    David

  • Bob Hendry at

    So – how much do you drink/day? And, where on the east coast are you?

    I’m from Southern Maryland.

    Don’t know much ’bout things Scotch (‘cept I’m a member of Clan MacNaughton and Clan Henderson . . .) – just ordered a bottle of Talisker Single Malt Scotch Whisky from http://www.superwinewarehouse.com/ @ $40 a bottle. We’ll see (Johnny Walker Red or Black are the only Scotches I’ve tried). I’ll let you know.

    Thanks for the article.