An Experiment Proving People Can Get Drunk Just by Eating Food Cooked With Alcohol

In the video “How to Get Drunk by Eating Food,” New Scientist deputy editor Graham Lawton set out to disprove the common myth that alcohol is burned off entirely in the cooking process, so eating food can not get a person drunk. To test this, Lawton ate several foods cooked with alcohol and measured his blood alcohol content with a breathalyzer after each course. The results showed that just by eating food cooked with alcohol a person can raise their blood alcohol content well over the legal limit to operate a car.

Lawton describes the myth and the science behind it in greater detail in an accompanying article on the subject.