Why does alcohol have calories

Find out more about the recommended limit for alcohol units. Find out more tips on cutting down your alcohol intake. Page last reviewed: 13 January Next review due: 13 January Calories in alcohol - Alcohol support Secondary navigation Alcohol facts Alcohol units Calories in alcohol The risks of drinking too much Binge drinking.

One way to get rid of alcohol is to use it for energy. But, your liver can only process so much alcohol as energy before the body has to start dumping the excess as urine. Basically, from a physiological standpoint, if you have one drink slowly, you'll probably digest most of the alcohol as energy. Drink heavily, and the calories don't "count" as much, because you'll end up excreting them. As far as published research is concerned, it doesn't really matter what you drink if you drink in moderation: a few drinks has no long-term impact on weight.

In addition to the work cited in [2], other studies have shown that moderate consumption of alcohol drinks per day results in insignificant weight gain. Since the published research doesn't offer any clear link between moderate alcohol consumption and weight gain, the next culprit to consider is sugar. Sugar contributes the most calories to drinks after alcohol and most nutritionists do agree that excess sugar intake results in long-term increased risk of overweight and obesity.

How do different drinks stack up, sugar-wise? Sweetened liqueurs and cocktails that use them contain the most sugar. Sweet wines come next. Dry wines, on the other hand, can contain very little residual sugar.

Beer is tricky. Whereas it's relatively easy to tell if a wine is low in sugar by simply tasting it, there's no easy way to avoid sugary beers. That's because many beers contain non-sweet sugars like maltose or low-sweet sugars like glucose and those sugars can be hidden by beer's bitterness while still packing a significant caloric punch.

Finally, most distilled spirits contain almost no residual sugar, so there's always that option, as long as you don't mind sipping them neat. Do these differences in sugar levels between drinks matter? That's up to you. Avoid rounds. Eat a balanced meal before you start drinking, to keep hunger at bay and make you less likely to make unhealthy choices later on.

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