30 Mar
2012
30 Mar
'12
12:53 p.m.
OK, I am also sure there are plenty of other
organic substances
around where which include an -OH group and thuys are techncially
alcohols.
Not everything with a hydroxyl group is considered an alcohol, even by
chemists. Alkali metal hydroxides, for example. Or water. Or sugars.
Or even phenol, though that's getting a bit more borderline. Which has just suggestesd a totally OT queestion
to me. Some
cultures prohibit the drinking of alcohol. This is normally taken to
mean drinks containing ethanol. But how do they handle other -OH
molecules in foods?
I feel reasonably sure the answer is "they ignore them"; certainly in
the few cases I can answer confidently it is. Such prohibitions often
(usually?) are actually aimed at intoxication, by way of intoxicants;
equating that with the presence of ethanol leads to errors in both
directions. (Of course, how much people care about those errors
varies.)