A frosty mug of beer or ruby-red glass of wine just wouldn't be the same if the liquid was murky or gritty. That's why producers of alcoholic beverages usually filter them. But in a study appearing in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, researchers report that a material often used as a filter could be transferring heavy metals such as arsenic to beer and wine. They also found ways to possibly limit this contamination.
Chronic dietary exposure to high levels of arsenic, lead and cadmium can endanger health. Therefore, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has set limits on these heavy metals in foods and beverages. Although some studies have reported elevated levels of the contaminants in wine and beer, researchers aren't sure how the metals are ending up in these beverages. Benjamin Redan, Lauren Jackson and colleagues wondered if the diatomaceous earth (DE) used to filter beer and wine could be introducing heavy metals, and if so, whether altering the filtering conditions could reduce the transfer.
Journal Reference:
Benjamin W. Redan, Joseph E. Jablonski, Catherine Halverson, James Jaganathan, Md. Abdul Mabud, Lauren S. Jackson. Factors Affecting Transfer of the Heavy Metals Arsenic, Lead, and Cadmium from Diatomaceous-Earth Filter Aids to Alcoholic Beverages during Laboratory-Scale Filtration. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 2019; DOI: 10.1021/acs.jafc.8b06062
(Score: 4, Funny) by Joe Desertrat on Friday February 22 2019, @11:08PM (3 children)
So that's why I feel bad if I drink a lot of them!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 23 2019, @06:02AM (1 child)
No, it's not that.
You are inherently bad, the drink only makes you feel the reality.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Tuesday February 26 2019, @11:31PM
Ah yes, a take on Hemingway: "If things are all right and you are feeling low a drink will make it better. But if things are really bad a drink will make it worse".
(Score: 0) by fakefuck39 on Saturday February 23 2019, @11:31AM
and this is exactly the fucking point. there's mercury in tuna too - so what - it does no damage unless you eat a pound of tuna every day.
"Chronic dietary exposure to high levels of arsenic, lead and cadmium can endanger health."
maybe if someone has chronic dietary exposure to high levels of alcohol that endangers health a bit more than trace amounts of heavy metals from the filter? seriously, how much metal do you get from filtering 32oz of beer? and if over a week you average over 32oz per day, that's the problem that needs to be fixed.
I drink like once every couple of years now that I've hit 40, and it's two days of non-stop partying, a liter of some hard stuff, and some blow. russian, so I don't know how to do it another way, but the 3 days I spend in bed afterwards make me not want to do it again for a couple of years. Never once have I woken in some random country from this binge up and been "damn them - damn those heavy metals in my booze"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22 2019, @11:12PM (1 child)
Bogus!
(Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday February 23 2019, @03:31AM
Heavy metal is an integral part of beer [youtube.com]!.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22 2019, @11:25PM (1 child)
Beer Goggles do not work as advertised.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday February 23 2019, @01:37AM
I dunno... she gooks pretty lood to me.
*Hic*
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Farkus888 on Saturday February 23 2019, @12:31AM (3 children)
Yeah, it sure wouldn't be the same. Less heavy metal from the filters and more nutrients from the yeast being left in. I've had more than my share of unfiltered beer and the visual impression of clarity is the only arguable benefit of filtering.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Saturday February 23 2019, @04:37AM
Real beer is clarified by simply allowing the yeast to fall to the bottom of the container and tapping the liquid just above the layer of yeasty beer. Filters not required, just time.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday February 23 2019, @06:06AM (1 child)
Clear as a healthy piss, what so favourable for the visual impression?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Farkus888 on Saturday February 23 2019, @09:32PM
I did say arguable. I agree with you but they sell a ton of that stuff so someone must agree with them.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Subsentient on Saturday February 23 2019, @05:40AM
does it become death metal?
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 5, Funny) by r1348 on Saturday February 23 2019, @09:38AM
...but you can't keep beer out of heavy metal!
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday February 23 2019, @02:13PM
Some might remember that a few years back there were panicked articles about trace amounts of psychoactive medicines like zanax in our water supply. Everybody was in a tizzy for a few days about it. My wife, an intelligent, educated person with a Master's degree, ran up to me and said "We have to buy a water filter NOW!" I pointed out that at the concentrations they were reporting you'd have to drink gallons of water a day, every day, for many lifetimes before you got so much as the same dose as one tiny pill.
Some years after that, some friends sent around a crisis message that was making the rounds on email. It was a picture of the beautiful Pacific Ocean filling up with deadly red, orange, and fluorescent yellow, flowing out from the epicenter of a place called Fukushima. OMG we all had to switch off all our appliances and sit in the dark ruing Man's insatiable greed for electrons that led him to risk nuclear power. The HORROR! The HORROR! I talked about half-lives, measurement, and how incredibly mind-bogglingly huge the Pacific Ocean was.
Now this. It makes me wonder if there was some quantum leap in the orders of magnitude of the sensitivity of our measurement equipment that has produced all these stories. Does anybody know? Has there been some advance that has enabled us to detect these slight levels? My cynical side says that somewhere in the darkness the marketing department for the Detectron 9000 is feeding these sensationalist stories to gullible and severely math- and science-challenged journalists.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Saturday February 23 2019, @07:18PM
Did I read it correctly, in that the filtering material they use introduces the heavy metal contamination? I was exposed to antimony and other heavy metals in my youth in a job cleaning and maintaining silicon furnaces. also beryllium dust and other evil shit. required monthly blood tests. Kind of want to stay away from any more exposure if I can. I guess I'll step up my wine and beer brewing skills.