Lo Carb Drinkers Exploited

[jonocarroll]

I don't understand what the 87% and 70% are.

Sorry, I quoted bigh, but didn't make it too clear. The 'balance is alcohol' percents of the beers he has the values for.



Cheers Murcluf - I've done a 6am interview on Star Trek FFS. Who is listening to this stuff at 6am?!?!

 

[jyo]

Is there a podcast by any chance, QB?

Cheers, John.

 

[jonocarroll]

Is there a podcast by any chance, QB?

If anyone's desperate, PM me for a link.

 

[MarkBastard]

Sorry, I quoted bigh, but didn't make it too clear. The 'balance is alcohol' percents of the beers he has the values for.

But he also says they are both 375ml and 4.6% ABV. Of course they therefore have the same amount of alcohol kj in them.

Isn't the point the difference in other kj?

 

[jonocarroll]

But he also says they are both 375ml and 4.6% ABV. Of course they therefore have the same amount of alcohol kj in them.

Correct, but it's nice to see those numbers being equal to really drive the point home. Can't argue with the numbers.

Isn't the point the difference in other kj?

Not if it's the alcohol that you'll metabolise first (and depending on how much energy you require vs how much exercise you're doing, whether you'll get to metabolising the carbs at all).

 

[Steve@PMF82]

Correct, but it's nice to see those numbers being equal to really drive the point home. Can't argue with the numbers.


Not if it's the alcohol that you'll metabolise first (and depending on how much energy you require vs how much exercise you're doing, whether you'll get to metabolising the carbs at all).

Thats my understanding, the body will always break down the alcohol first, if it has a lot to break down, carbs, fats and simple sugars will be stored as body fat for later use.

I always hear alcohol makes you fat and this is not true. Its the carbs/fats/simple sugars your body can not break down at the time that make you fat.
This can come from the beer or other drink itself or as i think which was mentioned earlier, more to do with the crap foods people consume whilst drinking the alcohol.

 

[drsmurto]

Thats my understanding, the body will always break down the alcohol first, if it has a lot to break down, carbs, fats and simple sugars will be stored as body fat for later use.

I always hear alcohol makes you fat and this is not true. Its the carbs/fats/simple sugars your body can not break down at the time that make you fat.
This can come from the beer or other drink itself or as i think which was mentioned earlier, more to do with the crap foods people consume whilst drinking the alcohol.

Weight gain/loss = energy in - energy out.

Given ethanol has more energy per gram than carbs, ethanol can indeed make you fat.

Blame it on the yiros you ate after consuming 10 pints.... energy content of the ethanol in 10 pints vs 1 yiros.......

 

[MarkBastard]

Correct, but it's nice to see those numbers being equal to really drive the point home. Can't argue with the numbers.


Not if it's the alcohol that you'll metabolise first (and depending on how much energy you require vs how much exercise you're doing, whether you'll get to metabolising the carbs at all).

Okay,

So I don't fully understand what you are getting at here but it seems like it could be one of two things.

1 - You metabolise alcohol energy first and if there's enough of this to get through the other kj are simply discarded (I'm guessing by being sent straight to your shit-creation facilities or pissed out). [I personally think this is BS]. If this is the case I'm going to go and grab a bottle of vodka and then after consuming it I will engorge on a massive feast of epic proportions.

2 - You metabolise alcohol energy first and if there's enough of this to get through the other kj go straight to being a stored form of energy, ie fat. If this is the case then then low carb beers are actually a lot better for you. As the alcohol energy will be metabolised anyway, the only thing left over is the carbohydrate energy. Therefore low-carb beers should only contribute to weight-gain a third of the amount of a full-carb beer.

Considering that I've heard, and I'm not scientist and may be wrong, that alcohol energy can NOT be stored as fat, but rather jumps straight to the queue for metabolising and instead means that other energy in your body is more likely to be stored as fat, then reducing the amount of other energy in your body is paramount.

Forget all the "fatty food you'll eat with beer" arguments and look purely at the beer. If you have lunch, start drinking at 3pm and drink 12 beers and don't eat anything else for the rest of the day, what is the real difference between low-carb and regular carb beers?

 

[HoppingMad]

Why doesn't commercial beer have the nutritional information that food & most drinks have on the packaging?

Putting nutritional info is largely a voluntary thing. Having worked on labelling for confectionary & icecream brands they have only just started to do this with many of their sugary products recently to encourage responsible eating. This is partly done for marketing reasons rather than goodwill.

All the beer labels already carry standard drink info, abvs, adding nutritional stuff would mean making bigger labels. Labelling is expensive - you'll note that most craft brewers don't add neck labels to save costs. They don't have many pennies to start with.

Hopper.

 

[drsmurto]

Okay,

So I don't fully understand what you are getting at here but it seems like it could be one of two things.

1 - You metabolise alcohol energy first and if there's enough of this to get through the other kj are simply discarded (I'm guessing by being sent straight to your shit-creation facilities or pissed out). [I personally think this is BS]. If this is the case I'm going to go and grab a bottle of vodka and then after consuming it I will engorge on a massive feast of epic proportions.

2 - You metabolise alcohol energy first and if there's enough of this to get through the other kj go straight to being a stored form of energy, ie fat. If this is the case then then low carb beers are actually a lot better for you. As the alcohol energy will be metabolised anyway, the only thing left over is the carbohydrate energy. Therefore low-carb beers should only contribute to weight-gain a third of the amount of a full-carb beer.

Considering that I've heard, and I'm not scientist and may be wrong, that alcohol energy can NOT be stored as fat, but rather jumps straight to the queue for metabolising and instead means that other energy in your body is more likely to be stored as fat, then reducing the amount of other energy in your body is paramount.

Forget all the "fatty food you'll eat with beer" arguments and look purely at the beer. If you have lunch, start drinking at 3pm and drink 12 beers and don't eat anything else for the rest of the day, what is the real difference between low-carb and regular carb beers?

You are overlooking the simple fact (not theory) that ethanol contains more energy per gram than carbohydrates.

Go back to my basic equation.

If you don't eat and only drink pure ethanol and enough of it such that your energy consumption is higher than your energy expenditure YOU WILL GAIN WEIGHT.

So the myth that alcohol doesn't cause weight gain is actually incorrect.

Too much lettuce consumed in one day can cause weight gain, if you ate enough.

EDIT - spelling

 

[jonocarroll]

Okay,

So I don't fully understand what you are getting at here but it seems like it could be one of two things.

1 - You metabolise alcohol energy first and if there's enough of this to get through the other kj are simply discarded (I'm guessing by being sent straight to your shit-creation facilities or pissed out). [I personally think this is BS]. If this is the case I'm going to go and grab a bottle of vodka and then after consuming it I will engorge on a massive feast of epic proportions.

2 - You metabolise alcohol energy first and if there's enough of this to get through the other kj go straight to being a stored form of energy, ie fat. If this is the case then then low carb beers are actually a lot better for you. As the alcohol energy will be metabolised anyway, the only thing left over is the carbohydrate energy. Therefore low-carb beers should only contribute to weight-gain a third of the amount of a full-carb beer.

Considering that I've heard, and I'm not scientist and may be wrong, that alcohol energy can NOT be stored as fat, but rather jumps straight to the queue for metabolising and instead means that other energy in your body is more likely to be stored as fat, then reducing the amount of other energy in your body is paramount.

Forget all the "fatty food you'll eat with beer" arguments and look purely at the beer. If you have lunch, start drinking at 3pm and drink 12 beers and don't eat anything else for the rest of the day, what is the real difference between low-carb and regular carb beers?

#2 FTW. Wait, not "number two" as in... never mind. Your second option, altered slightly. The total difference is 20% (in bigh's example) of the total energy of the full-carb beer, despite the large reduction in carbs.

The crux of this is that you need to use up more energy than you take in to avoid putting on the kilos. If you are meeting your quota on energy use, then yes - the 20% lower energy drink is better for you, presuming that your choices are that or a full-carb beer. If you drink 12 full-carb beers then hit the gym real hard, you can balance it all out. If you drank low-carb, you might be able to save yourself a few reps. If you don't hit the gym at all, the point is moot.

People criticised that Aussie Olympian who boasted he ate Maccas before a big race, but he uses up all that energy, and then some. That energy was also readily available for him to do that. Now, a couch-potato on the other hand probably doesn't need that much energy all at once, and will store it for when he's later not able to eat (yeah, that's gonna happen).

 

[MarkBastard]

#2 FTW. Wait, not "number two" as in... never mind. Your second option, altered slightly. The total difference is 20% (in bigh's example) of the total energy of the full-carb beer, despite the large reduction in carbs.

The crux of this is that you need to use up more energy than you take in to avoid putting on the kilos. If you are meeting your quota on energy use, then yes - the 20% lower energy drink is better for you, presuming that your choices are that or a full-carb beer. If you drink 12 full-carb beers then hit the gym real hard, you can balance it all out. If you drank low-carb, you might be able to save yourself a few reps. If you don't hit the gym at all, the point is moot.

People criticised that Aussie Olympian who boasted he ate Maccas before a big race, but he uses up all that energy, and then some. That energy was also readily available for him to do that. Now, a couch-potato on the other hand probably doesn't need that much energy all at once, and will store it for when he's later not able to eat (yeah, that's gonna happen).

Okay, I get where you're coming from.

Low carb beers are only of a significant benefit if you so happen to be burning off exactly the alcohol-kj content of the beer but not burning off the carb content.

And in reality the kj component only matters, so let's say a 4.6% full-carb beer has the same kj as a 5% low-carb beer, they'll still be as fattening as each other.

This is what I thought before this thread started by the way, but I still maintain that low-carb beers are lower carb and that the brewery communicating that to the consumer is fine. If they were marketed the same way they are in the US and called 'Lite' beers then I'd 100% understand the sentiment of misleading advertising.

 

[bum]

The crux of this is that you need to use up more energy than you take in to avoid putting on the kilos. If you are meeting your quota on energy use, then yes - the 20% lower energy drink is better for you, presuming that your choices are that or a full-carb beer. If you drink 12 full-carb beers then hit the gym real hard, you can balance it all out. If you drank low-carb, you might be able to save yourself a few reps. If you don't hit the gym at all, the point is moot.

I think you'd be hard pressed to find any health professional willing to recommend that you hit the gym newted (and even harder pressed to get me motivated to do so). So the issue then becomes how long does the body wait to start storing the unused portion of all that energy into fat?

 

[bum]

If they were marketed the same way they are in the US and called 'Lite'

The American market reads this as "lighter colored (because they can't spell) and easier drinking" - not "diet".

 

[MarkBastard]

The American market reads this as "lighter colored (because they can't spell) and easier drinking" - not "diet".

Essentially the first mainstream light beer, Miller Lite has a colorful history. After its first inception as "Gablinger's Diet Beer," which was created in 1967 by Joseph L. Owades, a biochemist working for New York's Rheingold Brewery,[2] the recipe was given (by the inventor of the light beer process) to one of Miller's competing breweries, Chicago's Meister Brau, which came out with the Meister Brau "Lite" brand in the late 1960s. When Miller acquired Meister Brau's labels the recipe was reformulated and relaunched as "Lite Beer from Miller" (which was its official name until the mid 80s) in the test markets of Springfield, IL and San Diego, CA in 1973, and heavily marketed using masculine pro sports players and other macho figures of the day in an effort to sell to the key beer-drinking male demographic. Miller's approach worked where the two previous light beers had failed, and Miller's early production totals of 12.8 million barrels quickly increased to 24.2 million barrels by 1977 as Miller rose to 2nd place in the American brewing marketplace. Other brewers responded, especially Anheuser-Busch with its heavily advertised Bud Light in 1982, which eventually overtook Lite in 1994. In 1992 light beer became the biggest domestic beer in America.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_Lite

The American market, from my experience, consider Lite beer to be synonymous with diet beer. That is exactly why it is called Lite beer by the marketers as well. The easier drinking part is true but that is a by-product of them being dry beers.

EDIT: Also from that link...

In 2008, Miller Brewing Company test-marketed three craft beers an amber, a blonde ale, and a wheat under the Miller Lite brand, marketed as Miller Lite Brewers Collection

Disproves the colour argument.

 

[bum]

Mark, did you read that? The beer was never marketed as "diet beer" by Miller.

Talk to some Americans. I've been there many times and speak to them about little other than their beers.

But, let's take your point at face value (even though I do not accept it) - how is this any different to the argument I've been presenting? A word that has an implied (though not literal) meaning in the community is misused by Big Beer. How can you say on one hand "low-carb" is fine but "light/lite" isn't?

 

[Steve@PMF82]

You are overlooking the simple fact (not theory) that ethanol contains more energy per gram than carbohydrates.

Go back to my basic equation.

If you don't eat and only drink pure ethanol and enough of it such that your energy consumption is higher than your energy expenditure YOU WILL GAIN WEIGHT.

So the myth that alcohol doesn't cause weight gain is actually incorrect.

Too much lettuce consumed in one day can cause weight gain, if you ate enough.

EDIT - spelling

I have to disagree, you are not looking at how alcohol is handled by the body.
Most of it is absorbed very quickly in the small intestines, then goes into the blood stream
and is processed by the liver.

Alcohol is a poison as is treated as so by the body. ie: the body will remove it as quickly as it can.
This has negative effects on other processes in the body.
Alcohol depletes the ability of the body to turn already stored energy(break down fats) into proteins to build muscle.
The actual amount that may end up being stored as fat is around 3 - 5%.
A lot depends on how fat you are already, how much you eat while drinking as to how quickly alchol is processed.

If you drank only pure enthanol you would die.
Have you ever seen chronic alcoholics that only drink hard liquor and do not eat anything? I have they are usually skin and bone.

 

[MarkBastard]

Mark, did you read that? The beer was never marketed as "diet beer" by Miller.

Talk to some Americans. I've been there many times and speak to them about little other than their beers.

But, let's take your point at face value (even though I do not accept it) - how is this any different to the argument I've been presenting? A word that has an implied (though not literal) meaning in the community is misused by Big Beer. How can you say on one hand "low-carb" is fine but "light/lite" isn't?

You were comprehensively proven wrong so it's obvious you'll just argue forever until I give up.

I have been to America about 6 times.

If you want to take this at face value, lite as the American breweries have intended it (synonym for diet) is a word with implied meaning. The implied meaning is that it is healthier than the alternatives.

Low-carb means lower carbohydrates than the alternatives. It is specific no matter how much BS psychology you want to attribute to it.

 

[bum]

Goddamn, it never cease to piss me off how you REFUSE to read other peoples' point then immediately accuse them of doing that to you.

 

[MarkBastard]

I WIN!