If you are an abstainer, you can abstain from this post. Likewise if you are svelte and always struggling to keep your weight up. For the rest of us, the University of Rochester has an interesting compilation of the caloric value (and alcohol content) of about 50 brands of beer, domestic and imported, and another table on wines (hat tip MedGadget).
Some interesting factoids:
Commonly misattributed to excess alcohol calories being stored as fat, the "beer belly" is actually a result of alcohol's more complex effects on the body's metabolic system. Simply put, alcohol reduces the amount of fat the body burns for energy. This occurs for the following reason:
- A small portion of the alcohol consumed is converted into fat.
- The liver then converts the rest (ie: majority) of the alcohol into acetate.
- The acetate is then released into the bloodstream, and replaces fat as a source of fuel.
Coupled with the high caloric value of alcohol, the resulting effect is that body is forced to store an excessive amount of unburned fat calories, often in the form of a 'beer belly".
[snip]
A commonly held misconception is that light beer is like diet coke - calorie and fat free. Although light beer does have fewer calories than the regular variety, the average light beer still contains upwards of 100 or more calories per 12 oz can.
[snip]
The caloric value of wine versus liquor is a classic example of the age old wisdom, "Looks can be deceiving". Despite the small quantity of liquid, a single shot of liquor (1.5 oz) can contain anywhere from 115-200 calories. In comparison, a 4.0 oz glass of wine contains anywhere from 62-160, with 160 being on the high end of the spectrum. Mixed drinks are where the calories really add up.
Along with the listing of all the beers, wines and "alcopops" is a list of the common mixers (coke, lemonaid, etc.).
Here's the link to the listing, again.
Cheers.
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I don't know how lite beer is made, but dry beer is an interesting concoction.
Low-end beers are made from rice, which starts out with starches to feed the growing plant. Malt is rice that is sprouted and then ground, leaving the enzymes of early gestation to continue breaking down the starches into 4 simpler carbohydrates. Yeast has enzymes which convert three of the four into sugars, leaving the fourth untouched. The yeast then converts the sugars into alcohol, carbon dioxide, and small amounts of flavorful chemicals. At some alcohol level, the yeast is poisoned or at least stops functioning, leaving some sugars left unconsumed. The result has the fourth simple carbohydrate. I'm sure I'm getting the starch->carbohydrate->sugar chain wrong, but saylavee.
In dry beer, an enzyme is added which attacks this fourth carbohydrate and turns it into sugars, allowing the yeast to consume it as well. So, less simple carbohydrates, with the sugar and alcohol ratio mediated by the yeast's alcohol sensitivity.
Making wine is an excellent hobby for a teenager, and building a still is a fine father-and-son project :)
I'm not prone to weight gain in any event, but I can tell you with certainty that if I undertake a multi-day adventure that involves vodka as the sole source of calories, there is defintely a thermogenic effect, and the calorie charts fail to apply. I've lost 6-7 pounds in less than a week this way despite supplementing with ample amounts of water. If I remembered to eat something -- even the occasional couple slices of pizza delivered mid-blackout and cast into a corner of the den to be forgotten until the next day -- my weight remained stable despite perhaps "only" a thousand calories (but who really knows?) of food per day. So the equations seem to be of the form
A = 0,
B = B,
A + B > B
where A = effective alcohol calories and B = food calories.
I know that a shift in the reduced and non-reduced forms of NAD and NADH lie at the metabolic root of this, but have never been inspired to reinvestigate the biochemistry pertinent to those interesting times.
Young people in Switz. are affected by public health initiatives. The dismaying example is a 14 to 25 year-old who is deathly scared and thus sharply disapproving of second hand smoke - and bugs everyone about it and will trudge to the voting booth to eliminate smoking in all public spaces, while smoking him or herself. Teenagers puff away and glower at someone who is sending his or her smoke their way. A new illustration of the hubris of invincibility of youth and the idiocy of the non-smoking crowd who have taken on smokers rather than smoking itself, who have concentrated their campaigns on a sort of 'ecological', clean air (...) model.
Drinking patterns are changing as well. Binge drinking, along the Anglo model, is rising fast - drinking is sort of 'not cool' (for girls, it makes you fat and looks disorderly...) if you are working, studying, out to lunch with a powerful person, having dinner with your Pop, on your own facing the screen, just wasting time rambling, etc. But in time-out, time away from regular activities, anything goes. And boy does it go. Very dangerous. Not so much for car accidents (not a car culture around here) but for excesses and craziness of other types, read sexual agression, amongst others.
The campaign for preventing the spread of Aids by using condoms has worked fine. Difficult to judge, natch.
Was really wanting this post to take off with all sorts of comments, darn!
Personally I can hardly drink anymore, one beer or quarter glass of wine is the limit or it's a hangover the next day.