Those of you who know Jeff know that he is quite fond of the drink, or, as he calls it, grandpa's old cough medicine. Should we take his wine consumption habits into account with his $127.05 monthly allotment? Of course, Jeff thought these should be "exempt purchases," without any supporting logic, and I opposed, arguing that his alcohol budget should be included in his allotment. Well, folks, our crack research team has discovered that the SNAP program does not cover alcohol purchases. I suppose this is good for policy reasons, although a libertarian freedom of choice argument can be made on the contrary. So, folks, Jason was wrong. Don't count on it happening again. Also notable, we discovered that food stamps do not cover basic household necessities, like laundry detergent, diapers, paper products, or hygiene products. We had assumed that food stamps could be used to purchase any supermarket product. This is not so. Household products can add a substantial amount to a family's supermarket bill. Many food stamp recipients also qualify under other welfare programs, like TANF, which would cover some of these purchases. Just one day in, and we have already learned quite a bit about various social safety net programs. Oh, those poor folk, covered and provided for so benevolently by our government.
Still, we continued discussing the alcohol issue, and determined that it would be in keeping in spirit with our challenge's goals to reduce, if not eliminate, other frivolous food and beverage consumption during the month. Sorry, Jeff, but your two bottles of wine per week will now have to last the entire month.
To provide further motivation for Jeff to reduce his 2 bottle consumption of wine per week, new data just released this past week at the annual Genitourinary Cancer Symposium suggests that heavy ethanol intake is associated with an increased risk of prostate cancer (PCa) among low-risk men with at least one prior negative prostate biopsy. It also is associated with an elevated risk for high-grade PCa.
ReplyDeleteCompared with non-drinkers, heavy drinkers had a 21% greater risk of PCa overall and a 34% greater risk of high-grade PCa (Gleason score of 7 or higher).
For the study, the investigators defined ethanol intake in terms of units (half pint of beer, glass of wine, for example). They classified subjects as nondrinkers, moderate drinkers (seven units or less per week), and heavy drinkers (more than seven units per week).
Cheers!!
Papa