8. Foods that may be dissolved in water can be incorporated in a beverage to make it nutritious. With many persons, as in the case of small children and invalids, this is often the only means there is of giving them nourishment. In serving beverages to healthy persons, the food value of the meal should be taken into consideration. The beverage accompanying a heavy meal should be one having very little food value; whereas, in the case of a light meal, the beverage can be such as will give additional nutrition. For instance, hot chocolate, which is very nutritious, would not be a good beverage to serve with a meal consisting of soup, meat, vegetables, salad, and dessert, but it would be an excellent drink to serve with a lunch that is made up of light sandwiches, salad, and fruit.
ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES
9. ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES are made by allowing yeast to ferment the starch or the sugar in a certain kind of food, thus producing acid and alcohol. Grains and fruits are used oftenest for this purpose. In some cases, the fermentation is allowed to continue long enough to use up all the starch or sugar in the material selected, and in this event the resulting beverages are sour and contain a great deal of alcohol. In others, the fermentation is stopped before all the sugar or starch is utilized, and then the beverage is sweet and contains less alcohol. The higher the percentage of alcohol a beverage contains, the more intoxicating it is and the more quickly will a state of intoxication be reached by drinking it.
10. HARMFUL EFFECTS OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES.--In years past, alcoholic beverages were considered to be a necessity for medicinal purposes in hospitals and in homes, but this use of them has been very greatly decreased. In fact, it is believed by most authorities that often more harm than good is done by using alcoholic beverages as a medical stimulant or as a carrier for some drug. As these drinks are harmful in this respect, so are they detrimental to health when they are taken merely as beverages. It is definitely known that alcohol acts as a food when it enters the body, for it is burned just as a carbohydrate would be and thus produces heat. That this action takes place very rapidly can be detected by the warmth that is produced almost immediately when the drink is taken. Some of it is lost through the breath and the kidneys without producing heat, and it also acts upon the blood vessels near the skin in such a way as to lose very quickly the heat that is produced. It is never conserved and used gradually as the heat from food is used. The taking of alcohol requires much work on the part of the kidneys, and this eventually injures them. It also hardens the liver and produces a disease known as hob-nailed, or gin, liver. In addition, if used continuously, this improper means of nourishing the body produces an excessive amount of fat. Because of these harmful effects on the various organs, its too rapid loss from the body, and the fact that it does not build tissue, alcohol is at best a very poor food and should be avoided on all occasions.
11. KINDS OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES.--In spite of the truth that beverages containing alcohol are found to be harmful, many of them are in common use. Following are the names of these, together with a short account of their preparation:
BEER is an alcoholic beverage made from certain grains, usually barley, by malting the grain, boiling the product with hops, and finally fermenting it with yeast. The malting of grains, it will be remembered, is explained in Cereals. The hops are used to give the beer a desirable flavor. This beverage is characterized by a low percentage of alcohol, containing only 2 to 5 per cent., and consequently is not very intoxicating.
WINE is a beverage that is usually made from grapes, although berries and other small fruits are occasionally used. It contains from 7 to 16 per cent. of alcohol and is therefore more intoxicating than beer. The wines in which all of the sugar is fermented are known as sour, or dry, wines, while those in which not all of the sugar has been fermented are called sweet wines. Many classes of wines are made and put on the market, but those most commonly used are claret, sherry, hock, port, and Madeira.
BRANDY is an alcoholic liquor distilled from wine. It is very intoxicating, for it consists of little besides alcohol and water, the percentage of alcohol varying from 40 to 50 per cent. Upon being distilled, brandy is colorless, but it is then stored in charred wooden casks, from which it takes its characteristic color.
GIN is a practically colorless liquor distilled from various grains and flavored with oil of juniper or some other flavoring substance, such as anise, orange peel, or fennel. It contains from 30 to 40 per cent. of alcohol. It is usually stored in glass bottles, which do not impart a color to it.