BellaOnline Forums Food and Wine Low Carb alcohol

I am often confused about the "carb content" of alcohol. Different sites say different things.

I find it hard to believe that vodka (gin, etc) has ZERO carbs! If it does, then where do the calories come from? I'd thought we got all our calories from either fat, protein or carbs. And I dont think vodka has protein or fat.
Doesn't the alcohol turn to sugar in your body ... thus it really is like drinking sugar?

I'm getting really temted to have a nice vodka and sugar-free tonic, but the sensible part of me says no. I WISH it were true (that vodka has no carbs) ... so someone please convince me!! :-)

I'm theorizing that all the sugar is used up during fermentation.

Vodka and Kool-Aid (get the unsweetened stuff and add 20 packets of carb free sweetner) is pretty nifty.

But that would make it calorie-free, which is too good to be true.

Although most of me thinks I shouldn't have, I still broke down and had a vodka + lime + water + splenda. Was delicious!

Very serious carb counters dispute many of the no-carb claims. They will point out that certain food additives are not counted as carbs, but actually are carbs. Confused? That's understandable. I think Lisa has done a good job trying to seperate out fact from fiction.

alcohol is turned into acetates in the body, and releases about 7 calories. it is not counted as one of the 3 main food groups, since no matter how much rationalization is done by alcoholics and alcohol manufacturers, the body does not need or want alcohol. it serves no health purpose and is just a toxic, if we define toxic as something the body does not need and therefore attempts to rid itself of it.

Aren't they turned into ketone bodies?

Aren't there 5 food groups recognized by the USDA? Or are you talking about exchanges?

A toxic? You mean a toxin? Well, the American Heart Association and many nursing associations actually reccommend 2 oz. of alcohol a day (wine, beer or liquor).

hi donica,

acetates and ketones are similar. i am not a chemist, but you can explore this further on the internet if you choose. basically what i was pointing out was that alcohol has calories of its own that the body does break down.

it is not one of the 3 main food groups (i.e. protein, fat or carbohydrates).

i don't care what the american heart association says, nor do i care about nursing facilities. alcohol is not something the body desires. alcoholics will rationalize any way they can to convince themselves that alcohol is okay.

people are basically naive enough to believe in many of these studies. like i have said on another thread, just toss these studies out the window, when they have financial implications.

you got the meat industry, the dairy industry, now the low-carb industry, the alcohol industry, etc. etc. etc. they are all desirous of selling you their product, and each can show you a dozen studies supporting why it is healthy to intake their products. if one wants to become better educated with regards to nutrition, get yourself a college book about physiology - it is the most accurate/less biased alternative to really understand how our bodies operate.

the brain blood-barrier has no ability to keep out alcohol and many drugs, which is why these things are so dangerous. the reason why the blood-brain barrier has no defense for these things, is because they are not supposed to be there in the first place.

the blood-brain barrier allows certain nutrients to pass, and other nutrients not to pass into the brain. there are some nutrients that other parts of the body needs, but the brain either needs less/none of it, so the barrier does its job. but it does not expect alcohol to be there. if it had a defense system, we would not get drunk in the first place. although other parts of our bodies, like our liver, would still eventually be affected.

people listen to all these studies and their conclusions. well the first thing that they need to realize is that most people are way out of balance in the first place.

for example, let's take the hyper person. imbibing alcohol may tend to calm that person down, at least temporarily. well heck, most drug addicts have initial calming downs, when they get their drug.

the wine industry loves to claim how those phytonutrients in the wine have shown good results. a better alternative would be to eat the grapes instead - a little thing the wine industry fails to mention.

but to conclude that alcohol is necessary or helpful would be wrong. if you want to understand why said person is over-hyper, you need to dig deeper, and begin to understand his emotional problems, and how his body is out of balance. the only way to truly solve a problem is to understand its basis, and fix that. but people want a magic pill to remove a symptom, which is what our medical/pharmaceutical industry provides us. but they have not fixed the underlying problems - they have merely masked the symptoms for awhile, until of course the problem becomes bigger, and the body then creates a bigger symptom. it is the body's attempt to tell us that we are still doing something incorrectly.

the key to good health is to bring the body back into balance. one does this by placing into one's body those nutrients that one's body needs, and just as importantly, NOT PUTTING INTO ONE'S BODY THE THINGS THAT IT DOES NOT NEED. alcohol is a substance that IT DOES NOT NEED.

the body breaks down alcohol, making ammonia, and as fast as it can, it breaks down the ammonia into urea, and disposes of it ASAP. if healthy, the body can get rid of a certain amount of alcohol, but not as fast as many people intake of it, nor as often.

sooner or later, alcohol does its damage. the correct decision is simply not to place alcohol in our system to begin with, and then we do not have to worry about our body getting rid of it.

Very interesting. Makes me happy that my low-carb diet has caused me to cut way back on my alcohol consumption.
Although I still dont want to give it up entirely. :rolling:

I'm now basically wondering what it does to ones blood-sugar levels. Does it affect insulin?
Or to put it another way ... if I were in ketosis (as measured by those sticks), would having a drink knock me out? Has anyone tried this? As in ... been in ketosis measurable by a keto-stick, and had a drink? If so ... did you stay in ketosis?

Thanks for all the info!

Just to jump in here, sugar and calories are not equivalent. So the four main types of fuel your body burns are proteins, fats, sugars, and alcohols. Eating protein, fat or alcohol doesn't affect your blood sugar levels for sort of obvious reasons - i.e. they're not part of the sugar group! <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

So definitely alcohols don't have carbs in them. they're a different type of energy. They DO have calories in them but low carb diets are about counting carbs, not about counting calories or energy.

I have a ton of articles on the low carb site about varous alcohols and their carb counts, and more information about how your body digests them.

Always drink in moderation!