I’m also an alcoholic. (Maintenance alkie, if you care.)
I’ve queried a dozen search engines a dozen different ways, and I can’t find anywhere the “Nutritional Info” table for beer - you know, like the kind that appears on every other food? I did see an attempt on a German site, but it only took into account the original ingredients, not the effects of metabolizing the alcohol, nor the food value lost by throwing out the solids in the wort, etc…
So the question is, how does one count all the sugars, carbos, and alcohol in a bottle of (let’s say) Bass Ale? How many mg/grams/kilos of sugar is this equivalent to?
I’ve been to the “so you have Diabetes” courses. I’ve talked to a dietician. I’ve talked to my primary care doctor. They are unanimously non-specific about exactly how much beer per day I can safely drink. No one seems to wants to tell me I can’t drink any beer. But they can’t say exactly how much is too much, either.
My physician even launched into a story about a nursing home study where they fed one group of diabetics the orthodox low-sugar diet, and another group got fed the same number of calories per day in ice cream. They monitored their blood glucose and glycohemoglobin numbers, and after a couple weeks there was no difference between the two groups. I asked him what this had to do with beer and he said that it doesn’t matter where the calories come from, it’s how many you consume. But then he went on to describe how beer is different because the alcohol gets metabolized into glucose as well…
Which brings me back to the question, how many calories in a pint of lager?
(And I’ve been lectured up to HERE about alcohol and diabetes. If you were about to go there, you can shut up now.)
bughunter: Not a lecture my good man, just a clarification . I honestly don’t know what the sugar content of your average beer is, but to my understanding the threat is not primarily the sugar content, but the possibility of a low-blood sugar event.
To my understanding ( and no doubt Qadgop or someone else will correct me if I’m wrong ), the liver is constantly secreting sugars into the system. When alcohol is introduced, however, the liver turns all its resources to processing it and ceases that secretion ( or slows it down ). The more alcohol, apparently the more profound the effect. Therefore heavy drinking ( especially on an empty stomach ) can cause a sudden drop in blood sugar with all the resulting complications that can ensue from that. And if you’re already ripped ( or even just tipsy ), you’re unlikely to notice you’re light-headed and about to pass out from low blood sugar instead of booze.
Also I believe heavy drinking also damages blood vessels. Never a good thing for a diabetic, since that’s a serious threat to begin with…
At least that was how it was explained to me. Sorry I don’t have a more precise answer for you.
Yes, Tamerlane, you are correct. Not only is there a normal metabolic response, but some of the drugs for type II diabetes (e.g., glipizide), also react with alcohol to create a risk of a hypoglycemic episode. I am familiar with all these effects, have learned how to avoid them, and keep a couple of juice boxes or hard candies around just in case.
But over the longer term, on a scale of hours, the beer one consumes does eventually get converted into blood glucose. When I occasionally go all out and split a case of Sierra Nevada with my two buds, the next morning, my blood sugar is astronomically high (sometimes 300 mg/dl or more).
The question I have been unable to reasearch successfully is the amount of sugars that is metabolized from 12 oz of barley pop, including its 6% of alcohol by volume.
Water 328.588 g
Energy 145.960 kcal
Protein 1.068 g
Total lipid (fat) 0.000 g
Carbohydrate, by difference 13.172 g
Fiber, total dietary 0.712 g
Alcohol 12.816 g
. I honestly don’t know what the sugar content of your average beer is, but to my understanding the threat is not primarily the sugar content, but the possibility of a low-blood sugar event.