All the alcohol turns to sugar

The annual Dry January campaign inevitably turns the spotlight on non-alcoholic beers, which in recent years have been the subject of a growing amount of publicity and hype. Obviously in terms of the specific objective of reducing alcohol consumption they have an undeniable advantage. Many people, though, have come to see them as being a healthy option in a wider sense. But does this belief really have any substance? A recent study has found that many of them in fact contain considerably more sugar than their normal-strength equivalents.

…while a regular can of beer such as BrewDog IPA contains negligible amounts of sugar, alcohol-free versions from the same brewery can have 6g per 330ml can or bottle – the equivalent of a teaspoon and a half of sugar.

Old Speckled Hen Low Alcohol, meanwhile, contains 2g of sugar per 100ml, compared with just 0.2g in its regular equivalent.

Faye Thompson, a nutritional therapist, said: 'Reducing alcohol is great, but the pay-off in switching to non-alcoholic beer is the higher sugar content. 'Sugar is the real culprit, not fat, when it comes to weight gain.'

It’s fairly obvious that if you reduce one element in a drink, something else has to take its place, and bulking it out with sugar is one of the easiest options. Holsten Diät Pils used to be advertised with the slogan “All the sugar turns to alcohol” (something that would not be permitted now), but for alcohol-free beers the opposite is often the case. Likewise, yogurts advertised as “low fat” often only achieve this through a high sugar content.

If you take the view that any alcohol consumption is a health risk, then switching to alcohol-free beer is a good idea. But even the official guidelines accept that there is a “safe” level of consumption, and I would bet that most people who sometimes drink AFBs are fairly light drinkers in the first place. Choosing an AFB over a normal-strength one is effectively like switching to a full-sugar fizzy drink.

Clearly there may be a benefit in situations such as driving where reducing one’s alcohol intake is desirable. But it’s unlikely to bring much, if any, health benefit. There is also the consideration that diabetics may find it better to drink a well-attenuated alcoholic beer than a sugary alcohol-free one. If you are going to drink AFBs, it might be a good idea to look carefully at the sugar content shown on the label.

As an aside, this reminds me of a book I read back in the 1980s entitled The Food Scandal by Caroline Walker and Geoffrey Cannon, which I probably still have somewhere. At the time I found it quite eye-opening in some respects, although with hindsight it did foreshadow much of the patronising, prescriptive approach to diet and health that has come to dominate official policy. But one thing that struck me even then was that the authors didn’t seem to be in favour of any kind of drinks beyond water. Alcohol – hardly needs saying. Fizzy drinks – full of sugar. Low-cal fizzy drinks – artificial sweeteners. Milk – saturated fat. Fruit juice – yet more sugar. Tea and coffee – full of caffeine. And that attitude only seems to have intensified in the present day.