In the Carrefour and in Costco they are pushing this “malt beverage” drink saying that is a healthy soft-drink. I tried researching it on Wikipedia and the web in gerneral and can’t come up with much. Maltz seems to be made by two different companies. One Taiwanese and one seems to be from Germany. But the “Maltz” or maltz beverage thing seems to be only in Taiwan or made in Germany for Taiwanese.
The closest I can find out about this thing in English is that a “malt beverage” is nothing more than a non-alcoholic beer or “Near Beer”.
My kids like it. I like it. But is it a good beverage? How does it rate on the soft-drink health scale. If it’s beer, it should make you fat, right? Does it have too much sugar?
How much per day would you let your kids drink. One bottle a day? When I question the rate at which they drink it, I get “But they say it’s a healthy beverage.” I also would like to feel that way. It gives me a level blood sugar, full feeling.
This “healthy” food/drink thing is just random marketing bollocks. Sure there are unhealthy foods, but there’s no diametric opposite that’s going to prevent cancer or cure your cold.
AFAIK malt beer is basically beer, except the yeast is killed before a full ferment - which suggests that there’s a lot of sugar remaining, and possibly some of the sulphites used to kill the yeast.
Personally I’d say one bottle a day of any manufactured drink is “unhealthy” in the sense that kids (a) learn to waste a shitload of money on something that’s unnecessary and (b) believe drinking water is for poor people.
Incidentally, can anyone explain the popularity of this word ‘beverage’ lately? When I were a kid drinks was called ‘drinks’. 
Avoiding confusion, perhaps? “God I need a drink” in English has a specific meaning.
I’d like to know more about this Maltz stuff too. It’s one of those “health foods” that occasionally shows up in our apartment, but to me it’s always seemed like a drink tailored for those who love the positive health affects of beer, but dislike its taste - and that’s a weird Venn diagram.
I have no clue about potential health benefits. The flavor is ok for me, bu it has so much sugar. Any drink with that amount of sugar can hardly be healthy.
Avoiding confusion, perhaps? “God I need a drink” in English has a specific meaning.
I’d like to know more about this Maltz stuff too. It’s one of those “health foods” that occasionally shows up in our apartment, but to me it’s always seemed like a drink tailored for those who love the positive health affects of beer, but dislike its taste - and that’s a weird Venn diagram.[/quote]
Hah, what was your drink gramps, Knee-hi or Yoohoo.
I like the flavor of Maltz and that usually is a red flag that it can’t be good for you. But I really would like some facts about it. I envy those who could just drink water. I will let the kids have it just a few times a week or I just won’t buy more for a while.
By the way, Taiwan has some kind of certification for so-called healthy products. The symbol looks like a clump of grass or something in a circle. Yogurts. some cereals and cereal drinks and the Brands type chicken extract among others have earned that seal. So far, Maltz has not.
It was water or nuthin’, unless it was Christmas, in which case we might get a glass of orange juice. And an extra potato. Between 15 of us. Of course, there’s only 4 of us now, what with the others getting TB and all.
srsly, I would try to avoid training your kids to drink out of bottles all the time. It’s a really, really bad habit. Apart from the sugar, 30NT a day on bottled drinks is 10K over the year, and you can buy a lot of nice stuff with 10K.
The green grassy thing is supposed to signify “Organic”, which means a bunch of under-employed bureaucrats have wandered around a factory with a clipboard, generated a 2-inch stack of paper, and charged the supplier/manufacturer a couple of million. It has nothing to do with whether the product is “healthy” or not.
Personally I think Malz tastes like flat, sweet beer. It’s OK, but I can’t imagine wanting to drink it every day …
We have something similar in the ol country. It is marketed towards runners, as an energy drink.
Hence, I have always avoided it, as I pressume it is a caloric bomb.
i bought it once as i was curious to what the hell it was, but honestly it went down the sink, it just tasted wrong.
I like it, but we don’t buy it that often. In the past yes, like every one month or two months, a bunch of cans.
Why does it say that it’s “healthy”? perhaps because as opposed to beer, it doesn’t have alcohol. But it does have a lot of sugar. If you are an active person (who walk up and down the scalators in the MT or Carrefour, for example), then I guess that it’s not that terrible to drink sometimes things like this. If you go from home to work and from work to home by car/motorcycle, and avoid any extra exercise besides playing Play Station, then you should avoid these beverages too.
Damnit, I should avoid these shitty artificial things even if sometimes I move my ass…
Carrefour carries 3 or 4 different malt drinks. One of them - without the sugar - tastes like a crap beer (but it’s actually quite drinkable.)
All the others are loaded with sugar and no sane person would drink them.
It tastes quite a bit like Kvas (the other Russian national drink) except with more sugar.
No worse than general soft drinks.
I saw it advertised for pregnant ladies, saying that it stimulates the milk production. Not sure if is it true or just another “marketing” action…