Health benefits with alcohol free beer

Improving Health with Alcohol-Free Beer

I have known since university that beer has benefits for health, for example, beer drinkers don’t seem to suffer from kidney stones, the hops used in the beer making process have a relaxant effect, and the beer itself is full of nutrients. I learnt further from reading the now classic barefoot running book Born to Run by Christopher McDougall, that the Tarahumara Indians drink home-brew low alcohol beer and eat chia seed gel which makes them great endurance-running athletes.  The problem is that the majority of beer on the market contains quite high levels of alcohol, usually between 4 and 5 percent, and it is the alcohol that isn’t good for you, it prevents good sleep, can cause fat to accumulate in the linings of arteries, and of course can cause liver damage.

Lately, along with no longer eating meat, I have also stopped drinking alcohol. In cutting out alcohol I immediately found that sleep is more restorative and with this a general improvement in physical and mental health. But I like beer, and I wanted to find a really good alcohol-free beer. I have tried almost all of the zero alcohol beers, from Cobra, Heineken, Becks, etc and they are OK, but not trully quite what I was after, I wanted something akin to the beer that the Tarahumara drink, something artisanal, cloudy, nutritious and tasty.

Franzikaner Alkoholfrei and Erdinger Alkoholfrei beer - the best of the best?

And I have found two excellent beers, Franziskaner (a Bavarian beer) and Erdinger (a German beer). Of course, they don’t taste exactly like beer with alcohol, but they do taste malty, beer-like, and nutritious. The alcoholic version of Franzikaner is a beautiful, foamy, cloudy beer with hints of citrus and banana, and the non-alcoholic version is perhaps less dense in flavour but still has a significant beer-like taste, and I think is one of the best non-alcoholic beer on the market.

Erdinger Alkoholfrei is marketed as a low-calorie isotonic “thirst quenching” drink with B9 and B12 vitamins which can “help reduce tiredness” and also promote the body’s “immune system and energy metabolism”. It seems too good to be true. But it was recommened to me by a fellow barefoot runner so I gave it a try, and...

I didn't look back - it was really good!

I have to say, this change in diet, more plants and more beer, really has had beneficial effects on my health. I do now have more energy, and I do feel an improvement in physical and mental welfare. Having suffered from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome for two years now, I can confidantly say that a mainly plant based diet, these two beers, and daily vitamins (with a little ginseng)  has dramatically improved my condition to the point that I am almost back to normal...I feel so confidant in this change in my health that I am going to start barefoot running again soon. This time next year I am sure I will have made a dramatic recovery and would have changed my life around.

Conclusion:

Whether you are a spooonie, a barefoot runner, or a bushcrafter who wants to cut down on alcohol, I really think it is worth trying out these drinks. Highly recommended!

Dundee: Everyone’s favourite crocodile hunter is back (sort of)

Dundee: Everyone’s favourite crocodile hunter is back (sort of) and Indiana Jones isn’t far behind...

Trailer click here

We forget that Crocodile Dundee was doing “bushcraft” even before bushcraft was a thing, going out on “walk about” and carrying a big knife. He may have been fictional but he certainly was an influence on my life, along with another hat wearing hero – Indiana Jones. Which is probably (most certainly) why I like to wear Australian bush hats and brown fedoras. But why is Paul Hogan bringing back, or teasing that he will bring back Crocodile Dundee now?

Well, it seems to have stemmed from the spoof Superbowl DUNDEE film commercial in 2018 which made a lot of people very excited at the prospect of seeing a re-boot of the 1986 phenomenon Crocodile Dundee, suddenly this unexpected online interest made a new film relevant (sort of) and which could possibly also be a success (maybe), playing on the nostalgia currently being experienced for 1980’s films. They started filming in mid-2018. Hoges has always said he wouldn’t make another Croc Dundee film. He said it would be Crocodile Dundee in the Care Home and rightly so. And this isn’t going to be a Croc Dundee film.

Unfortunately for Hogan his last Croc Dundee film was about 8 years too late (it would have been awesome in about 1993) and by 2001 when Croc III Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles was released the Crocodile Dundee wave had passed, it had been forgotten, or had become uncool, and the nostalgia for 1980’s films had not yet arrived. On its release Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles had a really exciting trailer, which was probably better than the film, but even this didn’t quite pull me back to the Cinema (not wanting to look uncool in front of my mates). The other big movie of that decade was Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull (2008) which was…erm…something I wanted to love and which I do like (sort of) but which just takes itself far too seriously. I have to say out of Croc III and Indy IV I think Croc III is "better", mainly it doesn’t take itself too seriously (the script is shocking), the storyline weak...and, I mean, the baddie in Croc II appears as Dundee’s mate in Croc III …I love the lack of continuity in the Dundee universe but it has its charm in its made for TV low budget style and the fun of it. But they are kind of the same, both Indy IV and Croc III are comeback movies many years after the last sequel, the leading actors are old, they both wear hats...and the two heroes both get married at the end. And... they were both a dissapointment in that neither lived up to the expectation. I prefer Croc III however.

Watching Croc III on DVD is nostalgic, and thoroughly recommended if you don’t have very high expectations, and just want some easy to watch vaguely interesting, made for TV sort of film. And I have to say I enjoy watching it, seeing Mick Dundee, Sue, Donk and Nugget again. Although Sue and Nugget have forgotten how to act and Donk has lost a lot of weight (and has become quite eloquent since becoming a bar tender.). I still laugh when Dundee is the bath drinking a cold one, when he accidentally switches on the Jacuzzi and shouts "crocodile!". And Dundee and Jacko's trip to Wendys for a drive-thru burger really is hilarious.

A few years later Hogan starred in Strange Bedfellows (2004) which was the laugh out loud comedy that Croc III should have been, and then in 2009 Charlie and Boots was this beautiful, subtle, artistic comedy film with its serious moments, and seemingly the end of Hogan's film career. He has always said that he retired after Crocodile Dundee as he did what he set out to do, and thereafter just did things for fun. I do love this attitude but it may explain why Hogan had so many flops from 1990 to 2001.

Fast forward ten years and history seems to be repeating itself, we have “Croc IV” and hopefully Indy 5 a year two years later (maybe). Whilst we know that that Indy 5 is probably going to be terrible (Disney's Star Wars Sequels anyone?), I do feel a certain excitement at Hoges’ new film. But I realise I need to stop calling it Croc IV. It isn’t. It is called The Very Excellent Mr Dundee, a meta-comedy about Hollywoods insistance to reboot / remake / reinvent Crocodile Dundee...hence why the emphasis in the film's title is on the DUNDEE. I am certain we aint going to be seeing Mick Dundee again, even as a cameo. Which is a shame. A bushcrafting Larrikin is exactly what we need right now...but it is sensible decision as Paul Hogan is elderly and his Crocodile days are long gone... With the release date set for 30^th April (Australia) we will soon find out. Unless we don't want to look uncool in front of our mates then we will just have to wait for it to come out on VHS, I  mean DVD...Netflix.

Although, Paul, this is seriously not the best time to release a film in the midst of COVID-19... this could be disastrous...but the trailer looks bloody brilliant nevertheless!

As for Indy 5 it seems that the pandemic has ultimately put a hiatus on this...revised release date is 2022. Interestingly, Harrison Ford will be the same age in Indy 5 as Paul Hogan was in The Very Excellent Mr Dundee. It seems Paul knows when it is time to call it a day with Crocodile Dundee proper (in 2001 when he was in his early 60's), but Harrison Ford? Less so. Make way for a 79 year old Indiana Jones.

JRR Tolkien: The ultimate author for bushcrafters?

To me at least, J.R.R. Tolkien’s whole Middle Earth series, or Legendarium, is a perfect read for bushcrafters - in particular The Lord of the Rings. It is quite a gentlemanly adventure, at least at first, as the Hobbits jump through a hole in the hedge, walking with their sticks, smoking their pipes, with their ruck sacks on their backs, eating and sleeping under old oak trees, and meeting Elves, and even a Ranger. I am sure they have Swiss Army Knives in their pockets which they use to uncork a bottle of Old Winyards (a wine from the Southfarthing). And of course, they find themselves in an adventure. It is an adventure told in an old fashioned sort of way, let’s says “traditional”, but then, so are many bushcrafters who like their steel high carbon, a Scandinavian grind, and their sheathes made of leather.

Tolkien’s Middle Earth is also very English, dare I say quite East Anglian (although I believe The Shire is somewhere between Oxford and the Cotswolds), and that is to say, Anglo-Saxon  but it is also rather Nordic too, literally… Gandalf and the Dwarves are right out of the Icelandic Elder Edda after all, and Middle Earth is translated directly from “Midgard” leaving us under no illusions of where our story is based, in a forgotten pre-Christian age reminiscent of Anglo-saxons and Vikings.

The Legendarium is therefore very much set in a Northern European climate and I suspect has a greater relevance (instinctually) to readers who live in these colder climes, not solely Northern Europe, but perhaps the more northern parts of Japan, Russia, Siberia perhaps, Canada and of course New Zealand.

I like Tolkien’s stories as they convey to me a sort of magicalness which I also feel when I am out in the countryside and woods of Middle England; where it is OK to enjoy an adventure at a sedate pace, enjoying the subtleties of nature, the beauty of a tree, the song of a Robin, the warmth of a fire, rather than those escapades I see on youtube which are referred to as "extreme sports", I suspect the average adrenalin junkie does not like Tolkien very much.

Tolkien’s work is very much a linguistic one, since he was a philologist and Professor of Anglo-Saxon (and unoffically also Old Norse) who invented languages in his spare time. Sometimes, when I am out in rural England, I see place names which remind me of names in his books. Place names such as Little Livermere, Methwold, Wicklewood, Winfarthing, Wood Dalling and Wood Norton, the River Witham, and The Deepings, and Deeping Gate; Bag Enderby, Brandy Wharf, Quadring, Frognall, Frogshall and Elveden. Sometimes I feel I am finding echoes of The Shire in these rural “shire” counties. I don't think that Tolkien necessarily got his names from the above, rather, he understood the roots of names, the archaeology of words, so that his languages and his names just fit authentically, as if they are real.

I have been acquainted with Lord of the Rings for many years, and whilst I still do enjoy to reading it, I find myself more intrigued by the first age of Middle Earth, The Silmarillion of course, but more precisely The Children of Hurin and also The Fall of Gondolin. Whilst these are more challenging reads, I find as I grow older that they intrigue me more and more, as do, as an aside, Tolkien’s Sigurd and Gudrun, and the Norse Myths in general.

I don’t what others think, but Tolkien seems to achieved what he set out to do, both as respected academic, but also in his spare (and retired) time, creating languages and a whole mythology of Nordic influence. I find it appeals to me due to my interest in nature and bushcraft…sentient talking trees anyone?

My view of bushcraft is probably quite narrow and there are, of course, many avenues for and of Bushcraft; for example, preppers, survivalists, the Bushman of the Savannah, the Pigmy’s of the Congo, tribes who live in the Amazon Rainforest. But for me – and I know this is hopelessly ethnocentric – Bushcraft is very much linked to the Nordic world of Tolkien, of rural Britain, of Beech trees, and old twisted Oak, Scots Pine, of hares, eagles and red stags…and in the mists of prehistory, of bison, wolves, lions, bears and the venerable woolly mammoth. Its essence is something fundamental that links us to our hunter-gatherer ancestors of the desolate ice age, and the magical world of the Siberian shaman and that vast Euroasian continent that was once contiguous with America. A veritable "Middle Earth".