For most of my adult life, moderate social drinking has been viewed as part of a healthy lifestyle. Indeed, for more than three decades, daily moderate booze intake in America has been defined as two glasses for a man and one for a woman. That may soon change. This summer, George F. Koob, director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, told the Daily Mail that Americans could soon be warned to limit their drinking to only two drinks… per week.
It’s emblematic of a dramatic shift currently taking place in our culture. I came of legal drinking age in the early 1990s, not long after “60 Minutes” told America that drinking red wine was healthy. In that legendary segment on the “French paradox,” Morley Safer asked: “Why is it that the French, who eat as much—or more—fat than we do, suffer fewer heart attacks?” The answer to the riddle, he continued, raising a full glass of red wine, “may lie in this inviting glass.” He later spoke with a French researcher, who claimed wine consumption could cut the risk of heart attack by as much as 50 percent.
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Though later research would undercut the premise of the French paradox, the segment had a profound effect on mainstream attitudes toward drinking in the United States. Boomers who’d previously never considered consuming wine began buying Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel by the
This Article was originally published on Wine Enthusiast
