I just read this somewhere. I have zero idea if it works, or if there are negative side effects and if so, what those are, how often you’d need to do this to get those side effects, or anything else. I’m posting it here to ask if anyone knows more about it, and maybe if some board MDs have any thoughts about the health effects of doing this once in awhile.
So here is a link and an excerpt. I accept any rocks thrown my way in case this is utterly stupid or even fake.
So what was the secret?
“Yeast!”
“Yeast?”
“Active yeast. Like you get at the grocery store.”
Koch told me that for years he has swallowed your standard Fleischmann’s dry yeast before he drinks, stirring the white powdery substance in with some yogurt to make it more palatable.
“One teaspoon per beer, right before you start drinking.”
He’d learned the trick from his good friend “Dr. Joe,” a craft beer legend in his own right. Educated at Harvard with a troika of degrees (a BA, a JD, and an MBA), Koch is no slouch, but the late-Joseph Owades was a flat-out genius. With a PhD in biochemistry from Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and an early job in the fermentation sciences department at Fleischmann’s, Owades probably knew more about fermentation and alcohol metabolism than perhaps any man who has ever lived. Koch calls him, in fact, “The best brewer who’s ever lived.” He used that immense knowledge to eventually become a consultant for most of the progenitors of America’s early craft brewing movement such as Anchor Brewing in San Francisco, New Amsterdam Brewing in New York, and, yes, the Boston Beer Company. There he became good friends with Koch, helped perfect Boston Lager, and passed on to Koch his little yeast secret.
You see, what Owades knew was that active dry yeast has an enzyme in it called alcohol dehydrogenases (ADH). Roughly put, ADH is able to break alcohol molecules down into their constituent parts of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Which is the same thing that happens when your body metabolizes alcohol in its liver. Owades realized if you also have that enzyme in your stomach when the alcohol first hits it, the ADH will begin breaking it down before it gets into your bloodstream and, thus, your brain.
“And it will mitigate - not eliminate - but mitigate the effects of alcohol!” Koch told me.
Supposedly it reduces the effects of alcohol but does not eliminate them. None of the other sources I looked at indicated anything about it allowing you to drive. It also mentions drinking only 6 beers presumably over several hours which might not be such a feat to stay relatively sober. I think it’s pretty irresponsible on Koch’s part since it’s easy to see how people would misuse this information and wind up driving drunk.
Chris, I read that article elsewhere and am a sceptic until I can see some science.
I think you should consider editing your post to include only a couple of quotes from the article. I believe copy and pasting an entire article against board rules and a copyright violation.
Okay, I was a bonehead and forgot I couldn’t post the whole thing. I’ve changed it to just an excerpt of the relevant part.
Again, I’m not advocating this and I have no idea if it works, but I thought it was interesting enough to find out if some people on the board know more about it.
Looking around a bit (which, obviously, I should have done before posting this in the first place), there doesn’t seem to be a definitive answer, but the science types seem mostly skeptical that yeast functions sufficiently in the ultra-acidic world of your stomach to make this work.
So, I’d probably put this in the “don’t put any stock into it unless/until you see some persuasive scientific and medical evidence” category for the time being. Sorry for posting this hastily, but I figure it’s better to leave up for further discussion rather than delete it, since people will probably be seeing or hearing secondhand about this story in the coming weeks.
Thanks for posting it in any case; I had similar questions as you when I saw this. It would be very interesting and potentially useful if there was truth to this, though I suspect if there was it would be more widely known by now – having said that, anyone want to volunteer to try it out and report back??
Same advice as to those with the “Rich man’s disease”: drink more water!!!
On a side note, any man caught eating yogurt in a bar should be taken outside said establishment, smeared with the offending yogurt in his nether region and thrown to a pack of hungry alley cats.
Inside the stomach the pH is around 1-2, the activity of enzymes is typically strongly dependent on the pH. Outside of their optimal pH range enzymes generally work much slower or not at all.
Yeast ADH has a pH optimum in the neutral to alkaline range, at low pH values it is not active at all. The following two papers looked at the effect of pH on ADH and both observed that ADH was unstable at low pH values
From “The Role of Zinc in Alcohol Dehydrogenase: V. THE EFFECT OF METAL-BINDING AGENTS ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE YEAST ALCOHOL DEHYDROGENASE MOLECULE”:
At acid pH, both activity and zinc of the enzyme are lost also (18, 19), but the effect of H+ ions on the structure of the enzyme differs markedly from that here described for chelating agents. Yeast alcohol dehydrogenase, 3.3 x 1O-5 M, when dialyzed for 24 hours in 0.1 M sodium acetate, pH 4.0, 0°, becomes polydispersed and precipitates on increasing the temperature by only 4°. Apparently, H+ ions critically affect sensitive groups of this enzyme in addition to those involved in activity and zinc binding.
From “Effect of pH on the Liver Alcohol Dehydrogenase Reaction”:
We are unable to study the rate of hydride transfer at more acidic pH values because our enzyme preparation undergoes rapid loss of activity below pH 5.9
So the proposed mechanism of the higher alcohol tolerance is highly implausible. There could be an effect of eating yeast separate from ADH, or yeast could have isoforms that also work at lower pH. But as the only evidence in favor seems to be anecdotal I would doubt that eating yeast as a significant effect.
Koch told me that for years he has swallowed your standard Fleischmann’s dry yeast before he drinks, stirring the white powdery substance in with some yogurt to make it more palatable.
British scientists have recently pinpointed the exact area of our brain where intoxication/hangovers take place and more importantly how to rapidly reverse the effects. I believe the compound they’ve developed goes directly into the product. Questions remain as to how the compound impacts flavor and other attributes. What I do recall was the reversal process was very quick with no hangover or other side effects.
Another great post Chris. I’ve often wondered how people manage the “embarrassment of riches” tastings, including your recent “1929-1979” post. I wouldn’t want to spit a drop of an ancient or rare or beautiful wine. By the same token, I wouldn’t want to waste the experience on a drunk palate at the tail end of the tasting. How do you all handle these? In the rare instances I’ve attended a prodigious tasting, my notes suffered and fizzled by the end of the evening. I don’t think yeast or water or protein or yogurt would have helped.
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