Tuesday, March 31, 2009

It's not the apples inside him, it's the alcohol in cider.

.
WARSAW - A Polish lawmaker who failed a drink-driving test said
he had eaten too many apples, the website of daily Gazeta Wyborcza said Monday.

Asked why a traffic police check Sunday showed he had 0.7 units of alcohol in his blood, Marek Latas denied having drunk alcohol that day.

"I am diabetic, I ate a few apples before driving.

"I have been involved in no accident, I underwent a routine roadside check. I was confident there was no chance I had alcohol in my blood," said Latas, a member of parliament for the conservative opposition Law and Justice Party. The prosecutor's office is investigating his case, the website said. In Poland, the legal limit for alcohol when driving is 0.2 units.

- Reuters
Cute story. Could it be true?

Assuming their alcohol limit is 0.05% (I don't understand 'units', that usually refers to drinks consumed.), the guy had a level of three and a half times that: 0.175%.

As a rule of thumb you blood alcohol level goes up by 0.01% per standard drink and down by 0.01% per hour. That blood level is equivalent to about 20 drinks over, say, three hours.

That's about 5 litres of 'liquor', requiring the juice of about three dozen apples.

Not only do you need to eat 36 apples, you need to retain them in your stomach for 3-6 days.

Not only do you need to retain them in your stomach for 3-6 days you need a yeast that will live in there. A stomach is about 100 times more acidic than the normal cider fermentation process. You need a super yeast and you need to be able to deal with a lot of released gas from the fermentation process. (burp).

And all that assumes that his liver is not metabolising the alcohol as it is produced.

Guilty as charged, I fear.

-

2 comments:

  1. Oh my goodness!!!--- I knew it!!! I was on a ankle montior--
    This happened to me-I was charged with a non-alcoholic traffic citation but could not serve jail time hence the ankle monitor and house arrest- I am a single mother of 3 I work from 6-5pm. According to my schedule with the place that maintained my ankle monitor I was to be home at 530- I had to get gas before going home so I called them to let them know that I was going to be late- I got home at six and an employee from the ankle monitor facility was at my house to give me a breathalizer--throughout the day I had eaten only about 8 maybe 9 apples my breathalizer came up to .08 which is the legal limit in Colorado. I have no reason to lie and I am very blown away by this story I just read --the above "facts" about having to eat 36 apples and having yeast is FALSE--I ate less than 10 apples and weigh 126 lbs. someone needs to seriously test this- I had to spend the remainder of my time on the monitor in jail- I begged for a blood test and they refused- I know without a doubt that I did not drink- There is noone to care for my kids except for me this was a very unfortunate event that took place- this "apple story" needs to be taken into serious consideration-

    ReplyDelete

Moderation cuts in six days after posting.