# Why don't alcoholic beverages have nutrition facts?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-alcoholic-beverages-have-nutrition-facts/379248>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 6, 2006, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-alcoholic-beverages-have-nutrition-facts/379248 "2006-11-06T03:22:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2006, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-alcoholic-beverages-have-nutrition-facts/379248/21 "2006-11-07T07:11:38Z")

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[QUOTE=beergeek279]  
Actually, the “booze biz” DID try to play by the same rules, but the FDA wouldn’t allow nutritional labels because it might imply that _oops_…maybe alcohol isn’t 100% bad after all??  
[/quote]  
If the FDA was claiming alcohol is “100% bad”, why don’t they prohibit its sale in this country? It is part of their mandate to keep “100% bad” things away from Americans.

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**Author:** ![psycat90](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@psycat90](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psycat90)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2006, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-alcoholic-beverages-have-nutrition-facts/379248/22 "2006-11-07T10:16:38Z")

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[QUOTE=Derleth]  
… the government tries to make them play by the same rules everyone else does.

[/QUOTE]

Everyone else being who? FDA? As far as I know alcohol has always fallen under a different governing branch than food and drugs.  
I’m not aware of any history of the ATF/TTB ever asking the industry to ‘play by the same rules as everyone else.’ It sounds like you are, and I’d love to hear about it or be pointed to what you are referencing.

Only very recently has it been proposed that allergens such as milk, fish, nuts, etc. used during processing be included on labels. No ruling has been made other than an interim one that now _allows_ (not require, and as already noted it was prohibited before) producers to include such information under the guidelines set forth by TTB. I don’t think the industry has a problem with putting an allergen warning on labels, and I expect a ruling making it mandatory to pass sometime in the future, much like ‘Contains Sulfites’ did.

Also, I hear that prohibition thing doesn’t work so well.

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