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Summary of Question:	Alcohol In Food & Medicine Ok?
Category:	Health
Date Posted:	Wednesday, 2/19/2003 9:59 AM MST

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa

Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh!

Khalsa ji, i would like some advice and help please..

1. some foods such as pasta have 'wine' in the ingredients and part of the sauce... which you can taste... should a Sikh eat foods with 'wine' or 'alcohol' as part of the ingredients?


2. most medicine have alcohol in them, for example cough medicine... should an amritdhari take medicine or search for non alcoholic medicines??? if taking medicine with alcohol then what is the reply to people who say "drinking a small glass of 'brandy' or whisky for a cough or cold is okay"

thank you very much for help
may god bless you with long lives and ever expanding progress in your mission

rab raka

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REPLY
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Sat Siri Akaal. Ideally, a Sikh does not eat food cooked with alcohol. But, depending on when the alcohol was added during cooking, the actual alcohol burns off leaving only a flavor of the (wine, beer, whatever) not actual alcohol. What this means is that the person eating is not actually eating fresh alcohol. Hard to explain, but I know from many experienced (non-Sikh) cooks this is why alcohol is added to food, for the flavor.

As for medicines, in the end this is a personal choice, especially if one prefers herbal medicines to pharmaceutical medicines. Brandy is known for its medicinal and presevative properties. Many herbal tinctures and other remedies have brandy in them as preservative. Frankly, no observant Sikh should drink straight brandy for a cough, it is too hard on the rest of the body and while it may ease the cough some, it might have other bad physical effects or become addicting. There are LOTS of cough medicines, herbal or not, that can ease a cough and that have no brandy, which can be addicting in the amounts used in cough medicines. That said, it is hard to find herbal medicinal tinctures or other medicinal (non-cough) remedies made without alcohol. But the small amounts of brandy one imbibes when taking an herbal tinctures are generally without side effects and non-addicting, which is the most important consideration. I speak from experience. Hope this helps,
-DKK