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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   5877 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 21, 2023

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Digestifs seem to be a very European phenomenon. All across Europe, most countries have some types of liquors that many people drink a small amount of after their dinner to "aid digestion". Grappa is one popular example. Aperitifs are a similar phenomenon, meant to be drank before a meal.

However, I remember hearing previously that any alcohol consumption will actually hinder digestion, by needing to be processed in a lengthy manner.

Is there any support for digestives and aperitifs actually working? What does "aid digestion" actually mean? Does it mean that it makes you feel less full? Does it help increase your metabolism?

Though it's true that, as others point out below, that the alcohol component of digestifs can make you feel better, I think there may be more to it than that. Most of them include quite a few botanicals, especially bitter botanicals, that could plausibly have some mild therapeutic benefit. Additionally bitter tastes on their own are possibly able to stimulate liver activity, as bitter compounds in nature are often toxic ones!

There are tons of companies out there that sell bitter extracts for digestion that, though often in an alcohol solution, don't give any appreciable amount of alcohol per dose. Random top search result: https://digestivereviews.com/br/c-bitters/

Mostly-negative article that nonetheless gives a medical patina to effects they may have: https://health.clevelandclinic.org/digestive-bitters/

Also, I've been on a booze-free kick recently and really love bitter drinks and aperitifs, so I've been drinking a zero-proof version, and for what it's worth it does seem to still help digestion a bit.

Overall it doesn't seem implausible to me that the human digestive system is 'supposed' to have some bitter compounds run through it, since it's only pretty recently that we've so decisively removed bitterness from our diet. And America is a bit of an outlier here as this post demonstrates; bitter drinks are popular in europe, as are foods like raddiccio and endive, and in Asia you have things like bitter melon. It was only quite recently that Dutch botanists bred our brussels sprouts to lack the bitterness they once had. https://www.myrecipes.com/ingredients/why-brussels-sprouts-are-less-bitter

Just like we removed the microorganisms from our environment to the point where our immune systems may become miscalibrated, seeing threats where there *should be *some but are none and attacking healthy tissues, maybe we removed bitterness from our diet that our livers think should be there and they end up understimulated?

Indigestion is a common side effect of alcohol withdrawal. Alcohol helps with that.

I'd imagine it does all bad things that alcohol normally does but it makes you feel better which is what counts. In the same way I've found getting drunk is a good cure for painful cuts and injuries, it's not that it actually cures anything directly but you get to ignore the pain while another day of natural healing passes.

To me a digestif is usually pretty herbal; ie. Benedictine, Jaeger, something like that.

So maybe the bitterness or non-alcohol components could have some effect?

Drinking something like grappa after dinner (or coffee drinks) is just a way of shaking off the torpor so you can party on -- which I suppose is probably better for digestion than lying on the couch for an hour, but more like a side effect.

aid digestion

Translation: it's an excuse to drink more.

CNS depressants/muscle relaxants generally exacerbate heartburn, which is why recommendations if you get it tend to be "don't drink so much then"- so I find it very difficult to believe that alcohol can be any kind of digestive aid.

Another contributor to my interpretation is the typical ABV of the digestif- about 40%- whereas aperitifs tend to be about half that. A full stomach inhibits alcohol absorption, so it makes sense that the after-dinner drink should be stiffer than the pre-dinner drink for the same effect.

Maybe "keeping the party going" is a digestive aid all its own, though.

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