Glass of red wine a day.

The Good News
A small glass of red wine every day could keep adult diabetes under control. A new study found that the drink contains high concentrations of chemicals that help the body regulate levels of sugar in the blood.
Just a small glass of red contained as many of these active ingredients as a daily dose of an anti-diabetic drug, the researchers found. Although the study didn't look at the effects of wine on people, its authors believe moderate drinking as part of a calorie controlled diet could protect against type 2 diabetes.
Past studies have shown that natural chemicals found grape skin and wine called polyphenols can help the body control glucose levels, and prevent potentially dangerous spikes or dips in blood sugar.
The Bad News
Previous studies have demonstrated potential health benefits from chemicals isolated from red wine. However the alcohol in wine is high in calories and can lead to weight gain, which can outweigh the benefits of these chemicals.

Recommendations

You know what it’s like, you live in the area and visitors ask you to recommend restaurants.
Tapping in to the wisdom of the crowd is a natural human instinct, according to one expert. “We’re hard-wired to get as much information from other people as possible,” says Graham Jones, a psychologist. “We use the views of other people to help validate our choices, and to meet our need for social acceptance.”
Trouble is you can come unstuck. We had a great couple of meals at a local tapas restaurant and recommended it highly to all and sundry. We had not been for a couple of months so we took the Lady of the Villa’s mother and sister to the restaurant recently. It was abysmal. It had turned into a bar with food rather than a restaurant. Still doing tapas but of poor quality and the service was abysmal.
From now on if we recommend anywhere we will have to go on a more regular basis.

The Ultimate Disaster – Eroski Closed

The local Eroski supermarket closed down, taken over by a Consum a rival. This in itself should not have been a disaster as we have all kinds of supermarkets around. But we considered it the ultimate disaster.
Eroski had something that no other supermarket has, good cheap wine both red and white. And not only is it good wine it is 80p a litre!
We had to go about 20 mile trip to stock up the wine fridge – hence the picture above. We bought 24 litres less than £20. Bargain.