If you attended a party for the big football game this weekend and had a few alcoholic beverages, you may be surprised to find out that some drinks can do more damage to your waistline than others. Lynn Walding of the Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division says we often hear the term "beer belly," but beer isn’t necessarily the worst drink calorie wise.
Walding says beer isn’t really too bad, as a typical light beer will only have 100 calories. He says it isn’t the alcohol itself that usually leads to high calories, it’s the mixes you put with it. Walding cites an example of a popular drink that can really throw off you diet. He says many people probably drink a margarita and not think about the amount of calories included in the drink, in some cases more than your daily recommended calories. Walding says the sugar in the margarita mix pushes up the calories.
He says some other alcoholic drinks are pretty low calorie on their own. Walding says they looked at all the different beverages and found that Saki has 58 calories for a typical one ounce serving, while Jagermeister has 169. Walding says federal officials are working to give consumers more information on alcohol, just like you see now on food packages.
Walding says the Tax and Trade Bureau is in the process of developing serving facts for alcoholic beverages that would maybe identify calories, carbohydrates, fats and proteins for each serving so you could know what you’re consuming. The Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division has information on alcohol and calories in some of the popular drinks on its website.