Find out how much alcohol you should be consuming to maintain a balanced and healthy lifestyle.
One of the most frequently asked nutrition questions I hear is about alcohol. How much? How often? What type should you drink to achieve a balance between the social aspects of drinking without any detrimental effects on your health? There are no hard and fast answers to these questions: every person is different, particularly in relation to health risk factors that play a key role in determining the recommendations for alcohol consumption for each person.
From a purely physiological perspective, alcohol contains 27 kilojoules per gram (almost as much as fat, which contains 37 kilojoules per gram) and is considered a toxin by the liver. Once alcohol is consumed, the liver sets to work to eliminate it from the body as quickly as possible. Public health recommendations suggest adults aim for at least two alcohol-free days a week, and a maximum of two standard drinks on days after that.
Kilojule content
There has been much in the press recently about the health benefits of drinking alcohol regularly, and while there is some evidence to show that drinking a small amount of alcohol regularly can help increase the amount of good cholesterol in the bloodstream, this finding is based on just one or two standard drinks a night; not drinking binges or alcohol consumed with high-kilojoule mixers.
The high kilojoule content of alcohol, particularly when it is mixed with juices, colas and energy drinks, means regular and high intakes of alcohol can result in weight gain. While a small glass of wine contains the same amount of kilojoules as a row of chocolate, the jumbo-sized glasses that wine is frequently served in can contain three times this amount, and it is not uncommon for one female to drink an entire bottle of wine by herself in one session.
For most people, one or two standard drinks a night will not cause weight gain, but drinking this much alcohol regularly does mean that the foods we commonly enjoy with a glass of wine or over a beer - cheese, dips, potato chips and crackers - are less likely to be used for energy as the body is too busy digesting the alcohol.
Low-carbohydrate and reduced-alcohol varieties of mixed drinks and beer can be slightly better options as they contain fewer kilojoules than regular varieties of beer and wine, but the benefit is quickly lost when three or four times the recommended number of drinks is consumed.
While drinking can be a part of social culture in Australia, finding a balance between health, weight control and socialising may be as simple as limiting drinking to the weekends, as nightly drinking quickly becomes a habit, and one that can be very challenging to break.
For the same reason, attempts at weight loss work best when alcohol is eliminated for at least a couple of weeks. Finally, if you enjoy unwinding with a glass of red at the end of the day, as long as you choose small glasses, there does not seem to be any pressing reason to stop, nutritionally or otherwise.
Kilojoules in commonly consumed alcoholic drinks (remember we need 6000-8000kJ on average a day)
Beverage | kJ |
Small glass of wine | 375 kJ |
Small glass of champagne | 355kJ |
Glass of low-alcohol wine | 320kJ |
Large glass of wine | 650kJ |
2 Crown Lagers | 1200kJ |
Toohey's Extra Dry | 600kJ |
Low-carbohydrate beer | 450kJ |
Bacardi Breezer | 700kJ |
Bourbon and Coke | 500kJ |
Bourbon and Diet Coke | 290kJ |
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