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You’ve probably seen this warning on medicines you’ve taken. The danger is real. Mixing alcohol with certain medications can cause nausea and vomiting, headaches, drowsiness, fainting, or loss of coordination. It also can put you at risk for internal bleeding, heart problems, and difficulties in breathing. In addition to these dangers, alcohol can make a medication less effective or even useless, or it may make the medication harmful or toxic to your body. It's important to remember these effects when combining over-the-counter medication and alcohol. Common ingredients in cold & flu medications can cause drowsiness, dizziness, bleeding and ulcers, liver...

Look, I get it. I really do. Lots of people find alcohol-free beer and wine laughable, some find the very concept offensive. What I don’t get is why. And, as importantly, why they feel the need to be so vocal about it. In the 10 years I’ve been running The Alcohol-Free Shop I’ve heard and read it all. ‘What’s the point? Just drink water!’ ‘Alcohol-free? I’d rather have free alcohol!’ ‘It’s like kissing your sister, it tastes the same but it’s wrong’ (and that’s the polite version of that particular one). Every time an article is published about alcohol-free drinks,...

Beer is everywhere. There’s always opportunity and temptation to hit a beer festival, share pints with friends, or open new bottle you’ve been hoarding away in your beer cellar (aka your Grandma’s basement). Yes, I know, #beerproblems. But when you taste, write and talk about beer every single day, it’s good to have some rules to live by. So behold — our TOP 5 TIPS for enjoying beer mindfully: 1. Imbibe with friends. Crack open your big bottles, or soaring ABV beers with friends. It can be very tempting to polish off a 500ml bottle on your own because you...

Calorie intake is something that is always on the minds of nutrition-conscious people. It's always important to be aware of eating habits - both in terms of the quantity of what we eat as well as the quality. We eat approximately 100 meals in a month, and we can make incremental but lasting changes over those 100 meals, like food quality and portion size. An area related to portion size that is often not given much attention by health professionals (at least when quoted in the media) are calories from alcohol. Alcohol packs a calorie-rich punch at 7 calories per...

Hops are one quarter of the ingredients that goes into making a traditional beer, where they create a bitter flavour and add those amazing aromas. With the recent increase in non-alcoholic beer consumption, scientists began noticing an improvement in quality of sleep and duration after drinking a non-alcoholic beer. Since we know that alcohol decreases the quality of sleep and duration, the question became: what component of beer is improving sleep quality? Studies done on animals with a similar sleep cycle to that of humans showed an improvement in sleep with statistical significance. Hops work to improve sleep when a...