Beer: it's a diet food, right?

by Sarah Gilbert, Posted Jan 5th 2006 @ 4:28PM

Now, if you'll just have this healthy beer for breakfast and for lunch, and a sensible dinner...

Beer. It could be the next product to use heart health benefits as one of its key marketing attributes, if the diet-blog's interpretation of new FDA rules catches on. According to a recent FDA announcement, "whole grain barley and barley-containing products are allowed to claim that they reduce the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD)." As we all know, beer contains barley! Next thing you know, your favorite brew will contain a label that says, "drinking this beer contributes to a healthy heart and may attract bikini-clad women!*"

Naturally, there's a catch. Evidently the beer is a bit too low on fiber to qualify. Oh well, maybe 2006 will bring more and looser FDA rules. We can but hope.

*That last part hasn't been vetted by the FDA. Yet.

[Thanks for the tip, Jim, and to Ernest von Rosen for the photo]

Source

Filed Under: Science, On the Blogs, Ingredients, Drink Recipes
Tags: barley, beer, dieting, fda, fda rules, FdaRules, grains, health, health food, HealthFood, healthy eating, HealthyEating, heart health, HeartHealth, wheat, whole grains, WholeGrains