belly concious booze myth?

[bacchant036]

had a sake tasting yesterday (i now know slightly more than the nothing i knew before) and was told quite confidently that sake had almost no calories, due to the absence of natural sugars in rice and that any calories present were due to the alcohol etc etc etc

can anyone back this up or disprove it?

muchos curious

[beans]

One resource: http://www.drinksmixer.com/desc693.html

Or the trusty USDA Agricultural Research Service's National Nutrient Database.

Per the USDA, one ounce of sake is 39 kilocalories and 1.46 carbs.

[slkinsey]

It's a completely ridiculous statement on a variety of levels.

First of all, it's a little simplistic to say that "rice has no natural sugars." Rice is mostly made out of starch. Starch is a "complex" polysaccharide carbohydrate. Polysaccharides can be broken down into monosaccharides by hydrolysis. Sugar, generally speaking, is a "simple" carbohydrate composed of one or two monosaccharides. So even if one can say that "rice has no natural sugars" it is a meaningless statement in this context, since there is ample starch that is reducible to sugar. It's like saying that scotch has almost no calories, due to the absence of natural sugars in barley.

Second, if there's no sugar there's no alcohol. Alcohol is made out of sugar, in the sense that it is a byproduct of the fermentation of sugar by yeast. When sake is made, rice is inocculated with a mold called koji (Aspergillum oryzae). The koji mold converts the starch of the rice into... wait for it... sugar. This sugar is fermented by yeast and the result is sake.

Third, hello? Alcohol has calories. Seven calories per gram, in fact (fat has 9 calories per gram).

[phaelon56]

Alcohol has calories. Seven calories per gram, in fact

I presume we can account for the difference in calories between differing forms of alcoholic beverages as being accounted for by what they are distilled from.

What I find a bit puzzling is this

Alcohol Calories Chart

Not that it's from some esteemed scientific source or anything but it shows "Rum" as being 220 calories per 100ml and then further down in the same chart lists "Bacardi" as being 118 calories per glass!

What's up with that? What Bacardi product are they talking about? Bacardi's recent efforts to promote Bacardi and Diet Coke as a low calorie Atkins friendly drink claim that Bacardi has 66 calories per serving/drink (I assume this is a one ounce portion).

[bacchant036]

thanks for that beans - you are an endless source of web based info, and yes your making me feel lazy.

the USDA site and drinks mixer were both very helpful,

and yes i guess the original bit of info was borderline stupid, although in fairness sake would seem to have about a 1/3 the calories of say vodka, and on an equal volume about the same as wine, which does seem less than i would have expected. the data on the sites was for a sake with a alcoholic content of 16% which i guess is comparable (almost) to a strong wine (very!).

i guess that for a normal serving size 1 sake would have less calories than say 1 beer, or 1 glass of wine, or 1 vodka tonic, so in that respect its probably a lower cal drink.

thanks all for your help

[bacchant036]

oh and as for bacardi.....

have a friend who three years ago switched from drinking a mix of everything to bacardi diet cokes, and this was his only dietary change, he's lost 16kg's so far, that to me is pretty substantial! maybe theres something in that bacardi myth.....

[BlackHive]

So am I right in assuming that "3 Vodka" is completely out of line with their "no carb vodka" marketing scheme? I always stated that it was bologna because alcohol is alcohol and it doesn't matter if it's from fermented and distilled barley, potatoes or soybeans. Yes?

[ThinkingBartender]

what about vodka made from grapes? (ciroc)

Its still vodka isn't it?

I am not sure why some people think it isn't.

[slkinsey]

So am I right in assuming that "3 Vodka" is completely out of line with their "no carb vodka" marketing scheme?  I always stated that it was bologna because alcohol is alcohol and it doesn't matter if it's from fermented and distilled barley, potatoes or soybeans.  Yes?

←

It strikes me as entirely possible to make a vodka that contains no carbohydrates. The question is, who cares?

[BlackHive]

But I thought if alcohol breaks down into those calories, it's impossible to make 'carb free' vodka. ???

no?

[slkinsey]

Something can have calories and no carbohydrates.

I think there may be a misunderstanding here: Yes, alcohol is often made from starches that have been reduced to sugars via enzymatic degradation. Yes, both starch and sugar are carbohydrates. But alcohol is not a carbohydrate. The fermentation process results in a different kind of molecule, and afaik it is not broken down into the same components by the body.

It is theoretically possible to convert all the carbohydrates in a ingredient to alcohol via enzymatic degradation and fermentation. In this case, there would be no carbohydrates remaining. It is also possible, I am guessing, to remove any carbohydrates that are not fermented into alcohol via distillation/rectification/filtering techniques. Refining to this degree will remove most of the flavor components, but with vodka this is not a problem (indeed, it is a goal).