Here’s cheers to a beer

AT THE tender age of 76 and a lifetime beer drinker, it comes as no surprise to me and other drinkers that beer is good for you ( C-M, Aug 12).

However what did surprise me was the comment by dietitian Catherine Saxelby that “(it) was more likely the food choice people made when drinking – such as that 3am kebab, burger or pizza to ‘soak up the alcohol’ rather than drinking beer itself that was leading to expanding waistlines”.

In my younger days, while living in Yorkshire, England, many coalminers, builders and factory workers visiting their local pub would drink 10, 15 or 20 pints of beer at a session.

All that beer swilling around in one’s stomach was the reason for the expanding waistlines, not the hot fish and chips eaten on the walk home.

But then again, in those days we where not afraid to put one foot in front of the other in a movement called walking – a long forgotten art. John McQueen, Redbank Plains