Beer - Low Carb or Low Alcohol?

Are you aiming to cut carbs? You consume one third as much

You drink in only 3 grams of carbohydrate from a 375ml bottle or can compared to 10 grams from regular beer. So you're drinking in about one-third the carbs of regular beer. You save 7 grams carbs per bottle or can which is around the carbs in half a slice of bread. Not much of a saving really. But over an evening of say six beers, this would translate to 40 grams less carbs.


Are you aiming to drink less alcohol? You won't save anything!

Low carb beers have the same alcohol content as full-strength regular beers. They're NOT low-alcohol which is probably why they appeal as they have a better flavour.

If you like numbers, check the table below. You'll see low carb beer has around 4.6% alcohol v/v, which is the same as regular beer and more than mid-strength (at 3.4% v/v) or light beers (2.7% v/v).


Carbs vs alcohol?

Removing EITHER carbohydrate or alcohol from beer means you end up consuming less kilojoules (20 to 33 per cent less depending on the brand), which gives you a good reason to order either if you're after weight loss.

What's interesting though, is both low carb beer and light beer are similar in kilojoules - around 450 kJ per bottle or 120 kJ per 100ml.

From a health viewpoint, irrespective of whether you are trying to lose weight or not, it's better to drink less alcohol than take in less carbohydrates. Therefore, my preference would be a lower-alcohol beer. You cut back on alcohol (which is good news for your liver, blood pressure and cancer risk) AND save on kilojoules.


One final point:

Compared to soft drink, beer is NOT high in carbohydrate in the first place. Regular beer has 3% carbs while soft drink has 10 or 11%. So a 375ml bottle or can contains about 10g of carbs compared with 40g for the soft drink.



Source: foodwatch.com.au