Just a quick question…
I recently saw a commercial for Bacardi that claims that a rum and diet coke has no carbs and no calories. How is that possible? I thought all alcohol, especially one made from sugar would contain calories. Is this commercial misleading or am I missing something?
It may not have any carbs, or at least no carbs as defined by the Atkins diet, but all ethanol (the alcohol you drink) definitely contains calories. (A quick google search says that one ounce of 80 proof rum has 64 calories.) Anything that can get you drunk is going to have ethanol in it, and your body can break down ethanol into fuel, ie calories.
Thank you for the info. I wonder how the commercial is able to get away with this claim?
IIRC ethanol has its own category according to the FDA. Therefore according to the government alcohol has no carbs. :rolleyes:
hooray for slimey advertising…
well, to be fair, I think they might use splenda too or something to sweeten it a little bit. I’m not sure, haven’t had a bottle in a long while.
Well, ethanol is not a carbohydrate. To say that ethanol has no carbs is not a bureaucratic name game, it is simply true by definition.
I just hopped over to the Bacardi website. They have a Flash ad for the same drink.
The ad says, in huge letters, “0 Carbs, 0 Sugar, 66 Calories”.
This seems like an accurate claim, on the face of it, and certainly one that can be used in an effective ad.
My personal preference is for a rum and tonic, which you could make a diet drink by using diet tonic.
IIRC, ethanol has about 7 calories/gram. So if an ounce of 80 proof liquor has no carbs and 66 calories, it must have about 9 grams of ethanol (assuming it contains no fats or proteins, which is probably reasonable).
Hope I’m not hijacking your thread, but I have a closely related quetion:
I’ve noticed certain products advertising that they have “no **net ** carbs” recently Anyone know what the hell the differnence is between “carbs” and “net carbs”?
A quick answer to the hijack:
Net carbs are total carbs minus dietary fiber (can’t digest 'em).
Pop into any of the atkins threads and get a more complete answer.
oops, I stand corrected. Perhaps it was the calories portion that was a loop hole?
Alcohol is not regulated by the FDA, it’s regulated by TTB, or Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Trade Bureau (the A & T in the former BATF.)
TTB recently passed a ruling regarding “low-carb” labelling and advertising.
Read more here.