What's the real calorific value of alcoholic drinks?

Question

I know it's always quoted as high (300 calories for a pint of beer), but surely most of that is the alcohol which the body does not absorb but gets rid of in sweat, breath and urine.

Answer 1

You are fooling yourself, alcohol is fattening. You might just as well suggest that all food is eventually peed out and lost via bowel motions!

Answer 2

No, non-alcoholic drinks are not cheaper. They are specialty drinks and they need to be made by a special process to make them non-alcoholic, so you wouldn't get it cheaper, even though it doesn't contain alcohol. Are decaffinated drinks cheaper? No. Again, they are specially processed, keeping them high up there pricewise. There was a time when decaf drinks were actually higher than the average cup of coffee. That was because they take more steps to produce them, more man-power that has to be paid. The worst non-alcoholic beer I ever tasted was one called 'Buckler' beer. Sharp's puts out a nice one, and I thought O'Doul's was good too. Wine always gave me a headache, and the non-alcoholic wine did nothing for me but give me a headache too. I didn't enjoy it.

Answer 3

Sorry, but beer contains a lot of calories that has nothing to do with the alcohol content, but from the high carbohydrate level present. Wine has a great deal of sugar, and mixed drinks, well, you might as well be downing McDonalds supersized chocolate shakes. Even alcohol is metabolized in an energy-producing reaction. In short, beer can indeed make you very fat.

Answer 4

Alcohol is not evaporated from the skin, or the mouth or the kidneys. It's too toxic to put in any of those places, because it would mess up the membranes that keep the outside and your inside away from each other.

(putting alcohol in your mouth is a major cause of bad breath; it kills off all of the local bacteria, and those that regrow fastest are opportunistic invaders instead of your beneficial native ones)

What you smell when somebody's been drinking is mostly acetone (toxic, but less so than alcohol) produced by the liver.

In heavy drinkers, this is replaced by 'ketones', because the liver gradually loses its ability to process alcohol fully.

Although the liver is able to turn sugars into fat, it actually does very little of this. A lot of the energy released by detoxifying alcohol IS stored as fat, because otherwise you'd die from the effects of releasing a huge quantity of sugars, or you'd be cooked if this energy were released as heat.

Over time, constant detoxification causes a 'fatty liver'. Next step; cirrhosis.

Answer 5

No, the body does not "get rid" of alcohol the way you describe. It is processed by the digestive system just like everything else you consume. The calories in alcohol contribute to weight gain, and provide no nutritional value. Check the information here:

http://www.weightlossresources.co.uk/logout/news_features/alcohol.htm

Answer 6

Not only is alcohol more likely to get stored as fat on your body but per gram it has 4 times as many calories as carbs do. So don't believe for one second that alcohol disappears in sweat, breath and urine. It is one of the biggest contributors to obesity in the world. For more information on this subject I have written a post on my blog all about it, please find it on the link below, I hope it helps.

Answer 7

Sorry to break it to ya, but the calories in beer are high and they do count. Your liver removes the alcohol, but it digests it (i.e. turns it into fuel for you body), it doesn't just make it disappear. If you drink too many six packs you're likely to develop a keg of your own (right over your stomach).

Answer 8

What has put me off is somebody said to me, you would not eat in 6 mars bars in a row so why would you drink 6 pints. pint=mars bar.
I still drink 6 pints but the thought of the fat/calorie intake worries me until I am drunk and then I don't care

Answer 9

That is mostly the calories for for the ingredients in the alcohol not the alcohol itself. Beer is made from barley and hops etc and those are high in calories etc.

Answer 10

General rule of thumb, as I have seen it:
12oz of beer contains on average 170 calories (Guinness is 125)
12oz of light beer is around 100 calories
1.5oz liquor/spirits is approx. 100 calories

If you have a mixed drink with 2-3 shots, mixed with fruit juice or soda, you could very easily see 250-400 calories per drink, most of which is simple carbohydrates.