The European Model

I don't feel like taking the time to go out and verify this right now, but it's an interesting idea from a KC Star letter to the editor.

Have wine with dinner

Thanks for your helpful tips on preventing illnesses from E. coli (12/7, A-1, “Add onions to food scares”). One other tip should be added to the list — perhaps the oldest and one of the most reliable of all: Drink a glass of wine with your meal.

A 1995 study by Dr. Martin Weisse, researcher at West Virginia University, found that both red and white wine were effective in wiping out bacteria responsible for food-related stomach ailments. He and his colleagues found that wine was effective in eradicating three types of bacteria that commonly cause food poisoning, dysentery and diarrhea.

“For thousands of years people have been saying that wine with dinner aids digestion; here we have an explanation why,” Weisse wrote.

Armies from before Caesar’s time took wine with them as they invaded other lands to make sure they were not taken down by strange food or polluted water (which we now know contained E. coli, salmonella and other microorganisms.)

The simple precaution of having a glass of wine with food can be a lifesaving act, not to mention that it can provide additional health benefits derived from the resveratrol in wine that counteracts heart disease caused by LDL cholesterol.