hunt@gatech.UUCP (11/09/83)
Anybody heard this one?
I was at a social function recently, standing with a group of people
discussing the weather, when someone came up to me an announced that
the Miller beer that I was sipping on contained formaldehyde as a
preservative. Ostensibly, the formaldehyde serves to protect the
beer since it is sold in clear glass bottles, rather than in brown
bottles.
Naturally, I have switched to hard liquor, since I no longer trust
the contents of any beer - no way will I pickle my innards with
formaldehyde. Has anyone out there ever heard of any factual
evidence as to the use of formaldehyde in beer (Miller or any other)?
--
Ed Hunt
School of ICS, Ga Tech, Atlanta GA
CSNet: Hunt @ GATech ARPA: Hunt.GATech @ UDel-Relay
uucp: ...!{sb1,allegra,ut-ngp}!gatech!hunt ...!duke!mcnc!msdc!gatech!huntnorm@ariel.UUCP (N.ANDREWS) (11/10/83)
I am not aware of any use of Formaldehyde for preserving beer, but I have heard that one of the by-products of metabolizing alcohol is aldehydes. Formaldehyde and other aldehydes are supposed to be powerful cross-linking agents, and don't do you any good. I think that smoking also causes (among other things) aldehyde damage to the lungs. Some theories of aging implicate cross-linking agents as one of the causes of accumulated damage known as aging... Any experts on aging/aldehydes/cross-linking on the net? I'm sure we have a lot of experts on beer... Norm Andrews ariel!norm
ignatz@ihuxx.UUCP (11/11/83)
Yes. When I took an NROTC training cruise (fast attack sub) to Guantanamo Bay, I found just how boring Cuba is. The only things to do were to swim, play tennis, and get drunk watching Cuban halftracks patrolling on the horizon. (This may sound like fun, and it is--for a week or so. But lord, how you get tired of those three things, when the only people to do them with are men...) In any case, I am somewhat of a beer lover, and dug into my first canned beer with a gusto that I wished I'd foregone. In this case, refrigeration is a luxury, and had to be reserved for those items that unquestionably needed it, like food and dairy products; cases of beer sat in tin sheds. A drop or so of formaldehyde keeps it from spoiing--and there were no tab-tops; it was back to the "church key". But only a can or two gave me a raging headache, so I discovered the tropical joys of a bottle of gin, tonic, and several fresh limes while I was down there. I even got to the point that I didn't care one way or the other about ice. I'm glad I left when I did. Dave Ihnat ihuxx!ignatz
dyer@wivax.UUCP (Stephen Dyer) (11/11/83)
Ethanol is oxidized to acetaldehyde by alcohol dehydrogenase, and thence almost immediately converted to acetyl coenzyme A, a component in the Krebs cycle, where it participates in normal carbohydrate metabolism. Thus, there is no accumulation of acetaldehyde in normal subjects, even when they are intoxicated. Alcoholics given the aversive drug, disulfiram, become acutely ill when they drink alcohol, because it inhibits aldehyde dehydrogenase, the enzyme which detoxifies acetaldehyde. If an aldehyde like acetaldehyde is a cross-linking agent, then perhaps one might see this effect in experimental animals given alcohol and disulfiram. I know that people have pointed the finger at formaldehyde, but that may be because it's a double aldehyde, symmetric around its single carbon atom. Acetaldehyde should be much less reactive. I don't know of any studies, though. Steve Dyer decvax!bbncca!sdyer
jbray@bbncca.ARPA (James Bray) (11/11/83)
Aldehydes -I seem to remember paraldehyde for some reason, but it could be others- are produced as intermediate breakdown products in the metabolization of alcohol. This takes place I believe in the liver, and under ordinary circumstances the enzyme pathways act like a unix pipe and these intermediate products are immediately converted. This can be interrupted by the drug Antabusin, whose chemical name I forget, which is I think a sulfer-containing compound that works by chelating the active copper? atom in the enzyme that eats the aldehyde, thus causing the stuff to just start floating around making you deathly ill (disulfiran?). But this does not ordinarily happen. People used to say that Boone's Farm wine had formaldehyde in it, and I wouldn't doubt it. I once found some stuff we called the Captain that had a picture of this really old-looking guy on it (the Captain) -crosslinked all to hell no doubt- and one glass of this stuff would give you a hangover without getting you drunk. No doubt a WCTU plot. I'd love to know what was in that stuff. --jim Bray UUCP decvax!bbncca!jbray, Arpa jbray@bbncca
dbb@fluke.UUCP (Dave Bartley) (11/11/83)
From what I've read, many beers (especially, but not exclusively, American beers) contain an impressive list of chemical and natural additives. I'm not sure that formaldehyde is among them, but it wouldn't surprise me. To date, U. S. breweries have successfully blocked attempts to force listing of the ingredients on the labels of their products. There are, however, beers without such extras, such as Cold Springs Export (Minnesotan, but I can get it in Seattle). There are others, both domestic and imported. By the way, West Germany has had a law on the books since the 16th century that restricts the ingredients of all beer sold domestically to four: water, malted barley, hops, and yeast (weizen beer, made with wheat added, is an exception). So far, the law has survived Common Market pressures when a similar law regarding wine-making fell. Consumer Reports had a rather extensive article on beer a couple of years back--it was the cover story--which dealt with additives as well as the usual taste-testing. Prosit, Dave Bartley John Fluke Mfg Co, Inc, Everett, Washington uw-beaver \ decvax!microsof \ ucbvax!lbl-csam >!fluke!dbb ssc-vax / allegra /