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Comment by aflag | Hacker News Reader

I think the fact that smoking forces others around you to smoke, whereas drinking doesn't is a big part of it. Along with the fact that drinking occasionally is far more common than smoking occasionally. Nicotine is far more adictive.

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> smoking forces others around you to smoke, whereas drinking doesn't is a big part of it.

if you go out with people who love drinking, it's going to be very hard to stick to coca-cola

I don't agree. For one, I've done it myself, and you can have just as much fun, if not more without alcohol. Though when the crowd gets too pissed, I usually just move on or go home. I like to drink occasionally, though, but I often abstain because I don't like the day after effect. Second I know abstainers who regularly go out with peeps who drink, and they do just fine. It's ofc annoying the third time someone you clearly told that you don't drink still offers you a drink, but most drinkers are completely fine and respectful with it. So IMO it's wrong to force such labels on casual drinkers. Meanwhile I understand why there are labels on smokes, because it's hella addictive and it also seriously unhealthy even for third parties.

I'm not saying it's impossible, but there is clearly social pressure to make you drink

Only if you're in a group where everyone is going to drink. If you go to a restaurant or a bar and everyone around you is drinking, I don't feel that really affects much my decision of whether or not I'll order an alcoholic drink. Whereas I got to believe that, if you're a smoker and other people around you are smoking, it's going to be difficult not to light one up yourself. It's the thing about nicotine addiction being much more common than alcoholism.

> I think the fact that smoking forces others around you to smoke, whereas drinking doesn't is a big part of it.

I'd be curious if cooking with wine falls into this category of affecting others. For example, at a restaurant if a meal has a little bit of wine in its sauce will that be listed on the menu or would it be added behind the scenes sort of like you wouldn't expect to see "garlic powder" or "pepper" listed on the menu for what's on a steak.

For most recipes involving wine, the alcohol in the dish will have evaporated long before it arrives at your table.

Friend of mine in recovery pointed out recently that this isn't true. In fact depending on the other ingredients and cooking duration, there may well be quite a bit of alcohol by volume in any 'wine sauce' or similar dish. It's the water that will evaporate first

"Meats and baked goods that are cooked for 25 minutes without being stirred retain 45 percent of alcohol."

https://www.isu.edu/news/2019-fall/no-worries-the-alcohol-bu...

Huh, today I learned, thank you!

I guess I can update towards "most of it will probably be cooked off" but 45% is still non negligible for a lot of scenarios. And even 5% remaining after 2.5 hours of boiling means that I should probably expect some alcohol no matter what.

That's slightly misleading. The final ABV is what really matters in the end. So, even though maybe only half of the wine alcohol evaporated, the fact that it's so diluted means the end ABV is probably going to be way below wine or even beer. I think a table with the actual ABV of all the common dishes that take any form of alcohol would be far more useful.

By the way, I'm pretty sure alcohol evaporates before the water. That's the reason you evaporate and collect the alcohol in distillation instead of evaporating the water and keeping the alcohol.

> beef with wine sauce, carrots in bourbon sauce, salad greens tossed with a champagne vinaigrette, and amaretto apple crisp.

these are all very different kinds of alcohol.

for example "beef with wine sauce" it's cooked using one small glass of wine (usually red) at around 10% (so not a good one to drink, typically more like 12% and up, but one specifically used for cooking) for 4 people.

One glass of wine at 10% contains ~10 grams of pure alcohol. Even if the dish retained 45% of it it would mean 4 grams of alcohol for 4 persons, while eating, which is a well known fact, considerably reduces the amount of alcohol absorbed and its potential dangers.

Even though based on my research cooking the meat for 2 hours, like you usually do for "beef with wine sauce" retains at max 5% of the alcohol.

So it's more like zero.

edit: I guess people are downvoting because in USA people are obsessed by the 12 steps or whatever they are called and cannot use moderation, they either drink to death or do not drink at all, because they are "clean" now and their body is a tremple.

So here it is the data

Meats and baked goods that are cooked for 25 minutes without being stirred retain 45 percent of alcohol. Stews and other dishes that simmer for two and one-half hours tend to have the lowest amounts, but they retain about five percent of the alcohol

Even though they have no obligation to, usually a dish that contains alcohol will say it's cooked in beer or it has a wine sauce. Being prepared with an alcoholic drink is usually considered classier. I think it's more likely for the restaurant to say they used wine or beer and, in fact, there is no alcohol but just flavourings, than it is for them to omit that part of the recipe.

> I'd be curious if cooking with wine falls into this category of affecting others

alcohol evaporates very rapidly at very low temperatures.

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