Green beer on St. Paddy’s Day ??? Here’s why not
Each and every year millions of Irish, Irish-ish and amateur alcoholics drink themselves into a stupor in honor of Saint Patrick.
If you were to stumble upon the streets with a camera and ask the patrons of the local watering holes who St. Patrick was and what exactly they are celebrating, the answer might get lost, but at least you would have something to laugh at for years to come.
Much like Cinco de Mayo, Americans have adopted the holiday as their own, adding it to the laundry list of days dedicated to pumping their stomachs full of booze.
Irish car bombs, shots of Jameson, and even…….. green beer.
No different than a Shamrock Shake from McDonalds, your St. Patrick’s Day green beer gets its hue from green food coloring.
While a little green beer may be harmless, binge drinking the stuff could prove to be quite bad for you. Along with the obvious issues with binge drinking (such as its effects on your brain and liver), the food coloring used in green beer could contain toxins . . . depending on the kind that your pub of choice is using.
As a matter of fact, green food coloring was linked to bladder cancer at one point. And, several countries are still working to ban food coloring because of its toxic effects. Think that a few green beers on St. Patrick’s Day won’t make a difference? It can when you add the coloring in those green beers to the already over-the-top amounts that you consume on a day-to-day basis without even realizing it. There’s food coloring in much of what we eat everyday—500 times more than 30 years ago to be specific.
Each regular 12-ounce beer will set you back about 150 to 200 calories, and a light beer contains about 110 calories.
While it’s unlikely that even heavy-weight drinkers will consume enough green food dye from beer in one day to cause medical mayhem, as with all things artificial, I would still advise you stick to beer in its natural hue.
If the health scare doesn’t do it for you……. just imagine it is Leprechaun pee.
Happy St. Paddy’s Day.
