My brother in law gave me huge wine glasses for Christmas one year. I find I don't use them as it would be too easy to pour too much into one. I measured the other day and 1 glass 3/4 filled was equivalent to 3 standard wine glasses!! Yikes!!
Found this article online and thought I'd share as it's so true. Just remember to be careful if you're moderating and pouring drinks at home.
***********************************
Home-Poured Drinks Not 'Standard' Servings
Larger Drink Content Can Lead to Over-Indulgence
This article has been reviewed by the Medical Review Board
Alcohol Statistics
Dec 23 2007
Safe drinking guidelines are based on a standard drink containing 0.6 ounces of pure alcohol, but when people drink at home they usually pour larger than standard-sized drinks, according to researchers at the Alcohol Research Group at the Public Health Institute.
William C. Kerr, a scientist with the Alcohol Research Group, lead a study that found that American drinkers who measure their usual alcohol consumption in the home environment have considerable variation in drink size, particularly for spirits and wine.
"Individual drinkers should be concerned with varying drink alcohol content because the consumption of non-standard drinks affects their ability to keep track of how much alcohol they have consumed and therefore their ability to conform to safe drinking guidelines and driving laws," said Kerr, in a news release about the study.
"Without valid and reliable measures of how much alcohol is being consumed by a population, the ability to assess risk is compromised," said Lorraine Midanik, an affiliate senior scientist with the Alcohol Research Group. "Population estimates of alcohol use derived from self-reports are used to determine risk for various adverse health and social outcomes and to help us to understand trends in the U.S. population. That is, 'are people drinking more, less or about the same alcohol over time?,' 'how are these trends related to morbidity and mortality?,' and 'what does this mean for policies that may affect alcohol consumption?'"
Kerr said many countries have standard drink sizes that differ from the 0.6 ounce standard. "Most of these, such as the United Kingdom standard of eight to 10 grams of alcohol are smaller than the U.S. standard," he said. "However, in no case are these standards based on studies of what drinkers actually consume. In fact, this is the first study to utilize beaker-measured drink sizes and brand-level percentage alcohol by volume information in a national sample in the U.S."
Simplifying the Message
"The mean drink alcohol content (in the survey) was 0.67 ounces, which is 11.7 percent larger than the 0.6 ounce standard drink," said Kerr. "A single-drink standard is helpful for simplifying messages about safe drinking limits and driving-under-the-influence limits as compared to having different standards for each beverage."
"Wine and spirits drinks are on average larger and more variable than beer drinks," said Kerr, "with spirits drinks averaging nearly 50 percent more alcohol than the U.S. standard drink."
Underestimating Alcohol Use
"The real-world implications of these findings are that we are continuously underestimating alcohol use in the U.S. and within specific populations with our traditional survey methodology," said Midanik. "This is highly problematic given that policy, treatment and prevention efforts are based on national surveys which provide basic epidemiologic data on alcohol use and alcohol-related problems in the population. These findings also have major implications for researchers, and will hopefully provide additional refinements to our survey questions in order to provide better estimates of alcohol consumption."
"In summary," said Kerr, "our findings suggest that many readers and their friends and family are pouring themselves larger-than-standard drinks. Given that safe-drink messages are based on a specific amount of alcohol in a drink, 0.6 ounces, they might want to become more aware of the percentage of alcohol in the brands of beer, wine and spirits they choose, perhaps adjusting their drink size accordingly. At minimum, they should be aware of larger-than-standard drinks."
Source: Results of the study were published in the November 2005 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.
Found this article online and thought I'd share as it's so true. Just remember to be careful if you're moderating and pouring drinks at home.
***********************************
Home-Poured Drinks Not 'Standard' Servings
Larger Drink Content Can Lead to Over-Indulgence
This article has been reviewed by the Medical Review Board
Alcohol Statistics
Dec 23 2007
Safe drinking guidelines are based on a standard drink containing 0.6 ounces of pure alcohol, but when people drink at home they usually pour larger than standard-sized drinks, according to researchers at the Alcohol Research Group at the Public Health Institute.
William C. Kerr, a scientist with the Alcohol Research Group, lead a study that found that American drinkers who measure their usual alcohol consumption in the home environment have considerable variation in drink size, particularly for spirits and wine.
"Individual drinkers should be concerned with varying drink alcohol content because the consumption of non-standard drinks affects their ability to keep track of how much alcohol they have consumed and therefore their ability to conform to safe drinking guidelines and driving laws," said Kerr, in a news release about the study.
"Without valid and reliable measures of how much alcohol is being consumed by a population, the ability to assess risk is compromised," said Lorraine Midanik, an affiliate senior scientist with the Alcohol Research Group. "Population estimates of alcohol use derived from self-reports are used to determine risk for various adverse health and social outcomes and to help us to understand trends in the U.S. population. That is, 'are people drinking more, less or about the same alcohol over time?,' 'how are these trends related to morbidity and mortality?,' and 'what does this mean for policies that may affect alcohol consumption?'"
Kerr said many countries have standard drink sizes that differ from the 0.6 ounce standard. "Most of these, such as the United Kingdom standard of eight to 10 grams of alcohol are smaller than the U.S. standard," he said. "However, in no case are these standards based on studies of what drinkers actually consume. In fact, this is the first study to utilize beaker-measured drink sizes and brand-level percentage alcohol by volume information in a national sample in the U.S."
Simplifying the Message
"The mean drink alcohol content (in the survey) was 0.67 ounces, which is 11.7 percent larger than the 0.6 ounce standard drink," said Kerr. "A single-drink standard is helpful for simplifying messages about safe drinking limits and driving-under-the-influence limits as compared to having different standards for each beverage."
"Wine and spirits drinks are on average larger and more variable than beer drinks," said Kerr, "with spirits drinks averaging nearly 50 percent more alcohol than the U.S. standard drink."
Underestimating Alcohol Use
"The real-world implications of these findings are that we are continuously underestimating alcohol use in the U.S. and within specific populations with our traditional survey methodology," said Midanik. "This is highly problematic given that policy, treatment and prevention efforts are based on national surveys which provide basic epidemiologic data on alcohol use and alcohol-related problems in the population. These findings also have major implications for researchers, and will hopefully provide additional refinements to our survey questions in order to provide better estimates of alcohol consumption."
"In summary," said Kerr, "our findings suggest that many readers and their friends and family are pouring themselves larger-than-standard drinks. Given that safe-drink messages are based on a specific amount of alcohol in a drink, 0.6 ounces, they might want to become more aware of the percentage of alcohol in the brands of beer, wine and spirits they choose, perhaps adjusting their drink size accordingly. At minimum, they should be aware of larger-than-standard drinks."
Source: Results of the study were published in the November 2005 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.
Comment