Since the calories of alcoholic beverages by and large come from ethanol do ethanol calories count as normal calories? are they broken down and used by the body the same way fat or carbohydrate calories are used or since it is ethanol does it take a different path in the body and the calories are not used.
Not only do alcohol calories count, but they’re worse than you’d think. See here.
Calories from ethanol count as calories, because ethanol is digestible.
Ethanol isn’t broken down the same way that fat is. Alcohol is a carbohydrate. It isn’t broken down in quite the same way as other carbohydrates are. That isn’t significant in and of itself. Starch and sugar are both carbohydrates, but they don’t get broken down in the same way as each other either.
Cellulose is also a carbohydrate. Calories from cellulose don’t count, because cellulose isn’t digestible for humans. It usually gets listed as “fiber”, because humans can’t digest stuff like grass or sawdust. Cows and termites on the other hand…
Weight Watchers in their points formula count alcohol points as sugar points which makes sense because your body will burn alcohol before it starts on carbohydrates.
No, it doesn’t. Sugar, alcohol, and whatever it is that you think of as “carbohydrates” (presumably starches) are all carbohydrates.
Yes, we can digest cows and termites.
Well no alcohol is not carbohydrates. And it makes sense in the terms in which I expressed it. The consumption of alcohol acts pretty much the same as thge consumption of sugars as opposed to lower glycemic index carbohydrates.
Alcohol contains no carbohydrates, no protein, no fat but does have calories.
Here is a link explaining clearly that alcohol is not a carbohydrate.
Here is an explanation of how alcohol acts to prevent fat mobilisation.
All this is most critical to understand for diabetics. Due to the body’s tendency to use alcohol first, the body can be prevented from adjusting blood sugar if alcohol is drunk without eating.
We aren’t working with a good definition on “carbohydrate”, here.
If “carbohydrate” means a compound of the form C[sub]n[/sub]H[sub]2n[/sub]O[sub]n[/sub], then alcohol isn’t a carbohydrate, but sucrose is. But simple sugars (like sucrose and fructose) can also be described as ketones or aldehydes. And more complex carbohydrates can be regarded as a combination of an alcohol plus a ketone or an aldehyde.
From a dietary perspective, it’s a bit silly to get into arguments over whether alcohols are actually carbohydrates, or whether sucrose is really a carbohydrate or a ketone. It just doesn’t make any difference.
(And hey there Blake, how’s your cat? Learned to jump yet?)
And BTW, don’t ask, I’m not trying to argue against preferential metabolisation, I’m just saying that your Weight Watchers explanation (that sugar and alcohol are metabolised quicker than “carbohydrates”, because sugar and alcohol *aren’t * “carbohydrates”) just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
Oh, I see. Neither I nor WW (they wouldn’t want me talking for them) are saying that but I see my reference to points makes it look that way.
A friend recently joined and being nosy I had to find out how it worked - I wanted to crack the algorithm for their “points system”. In reading the stuff I discovered that they actually count “sugar points” which are calories provided by simple sugars or alcohol. They limit these to encourage the consumption of more complex carbohydrates. This is in addition to the restrictions on the number of “points” consumed a day.
It is actually quite a clever scheme and once you know how it works it offers an often horrifying perspective on what you consume.
So WW’s usage of “sugar points”, that I have wrongfully appropriated, doesn’t pretend that sugars aren’t carbohydrates it is just a tool for tracking your dietary habits.
Cool.