The biggest myths about alcohol

Say wine, snacks or haute cuisine and the food lovers of online food magazine FavorFlav know where to drink, how to eat and what to cook. This time our chefs serve you: fables about alcohol.

With red wine, you get drunk less quickly than with white wine. And try to postpone your first toilet visit for as long as possible: once you go to the bathroom, you keep going. Do you believe these kinds of myths about alcohol? We'll help you wake up from this dream soon.

One drink per hour, nothing to worry about
If you only drink one drink per hour, you can just drive home. Because while sitting on your bar stool, your body is busy processing that alcohol into a few harmless farts or burps.

Not true: What do you think? Pacing yourself all evening and then soberly going home? Life is not a pony camp, and this is of course nonsense. Your body takes about two hours to break down the alcohol from one glass of wine. If number two is on the way in the meantime, that process doesn't speed up. It's also not the case that the breakdown happens much faster in men than in women, or in younger people than in older ones. Even if you drink one drink per hour, it's best to call an Uber if you want to go home.

Mixing strong drinks and beer is risky business
First strong drink, then beer: nothing to worry about. First beer, then strong drink: bad news. The order of your drinks matters.

Not true: The order doesn't matter, the amount of alcohol in your drinks is what it's all about. An article in The New York Times suggested that the bubbles in beer and champagne can slightly irritate your stomach, making you get drunk faster. If you then switch to strong drinks, that alcohol would be absorbed into your body faster. The question is whether that's true.

Dark drinks are better for you
Red wine, whiskey, and other drinks with a dark color contain substances that are good for you. White wine, gin, and lager do not contain those healthy substances. That's why your hangover from white wine and beer is much worse than from, for example, red wine.

Not true: Red wine contains more polyphenols than white wine, and those are antioxidants that may have health effects. Dark beers contain flavonoids, which are also a healthy substance. But research involving a group of people drinking vodka, and a control group drinking whiskey, showed that all participants felt equally bad after a night out. The whiskey drinkers complained more about hangover symptoms like a dry tongue, headache, and an upset stomach.

Once you go to the bathroom, you keep going
Postpone going to the bathroom for as long as possible, because once you've been to the toilet, you keep walking back and forth.

Not true: Alcohol confuses the substances in your blood that cause you to retain fluid. So on a night out, you can't hold onto fluid well, so you have to pee more often. How long you postpone your first bathroom visit doesn't matter. In fact, alcohol can irritate your bladder, so it's better to go to the bathroom when you feel the urge, to prevent bladder problems (and to avoid other embarrassing situations).

Dark beer contains more alcohol than light-colored beer
You see it this way: a Guinness contains much more alcohol than a lager. You can see that by the color.

Not true: The alcohol percentage in a beer has nothing to do with the color. Don't be fooled!

If you've thrown up, you're sober again
Come on, you give that alcohol back to nature, then you feel better immediately and you're sober again.

Not true: The alcohol from your drink is quickly absorbed by your body. Do you feel nauseous from the drink? It doesn't help to stick your finger down your throat, at most to prevent worse. How can you prevent that nausea? It's not rocket science: don't drink so much and so quickly.

A night of heavy partying costs you a few brain cells
Getting drunk and partying hard is bad for your brain. Every drink costs you a few brain cells.

Not true: No brain cells die when you're really drunk. You often behave stupidly, so it may seem like your IQ is declining with every shot you take, but all the gray cells stay right where they are. However, if you drink regularly or use a lot of alcohol for a long time, you can damage your brain. Korsakoff, ever heard of it?