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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3937 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 12, 2023

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I agree on caloric, but I'm not convinced ancient beer was a necessary/useful source of B-vitamins (which ones? they're quite different). Does modern beer not have b-vitamins?

During WW 2 it was fairly common, and apparently somewhat successful, for prisoners in the Pacific to cultivate yeast to prevent B1 and B3 deficiencies. I'm not sure how many of the other vitamins were known at the time. So primitive fermentation is viable in some circumstances.

On the other hand, alcohol is an anti-vitamin for at least some of the B-vitamins in beer. For example, alcoholics are prone to B1 deficiency.

Brewers yeast has a variety, apparently. No idea which of them are denatured by the heat of pasteurization,

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