This is the first holiday season that a new website created by the Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division is available to help you learn more about the drinks you are consuming.
Tonya Dusold, a spokeswoman for the agency, says the free CALCohol site lets you find out how many servings of alcohol are in a drink, which is a little different from the way things have been done in the past, as traditional blood alcohol concentration calculators take into account only your sex and weight.
“But there are so many other things that go into how a body processes alcohol besides those two factors,” she says. “Did you eat? What did you eat? When did you eat? How often did you drink alcohol?”
The CALCohol site allows you to determine how all those factors will impact you.
“One person may have one serving of alcohol and not be okay to drive…another person may be able to have two or three and still be under the legal limit. So it’s more based on an individual and how many servings have you had,” Dusold says.
The program is designed to be used on mobile devices, so it is readily available to help you make decisions.
“A customer either making an order at the bar or shopping the cooler at the liquor store can understand how much alcohol is in that particular container or that product, and what the serving size would be,” Dusold says.
There are many different types and flavors of drinks being sold today and Dusold says it can be confusing to determine how much alcohol you are consuming. She says the program helps you make that determination.