Is your cocktail perfect? Nutrition facts won’t tell you

IIf you’ve browsed the refrigerated section of a liquor store recently, you’ve probably caught a glimpse of the many mixed cocktails – piña coladas, vodka mules, rum and cokes, and even mojitos. And if you’ve cracked one, you may have thought, “Tastes sweet for my taste, but not bad.” Turn the bottle over to look at the nutrition facts label to find out exactly how much sugar or artificial sweetener is in there… and you may come up empty.

Many ready-to-drink cocktails and alcopops are high in sugar, as are carbonated beverages such as Coca-Cola. All that sugar – and other additives – are in most beverages that fall into the category of “processed foods” (UPF). But unlike other sugary drinks, most soft drinks are not required to have their nutrition facts printed – opening the door for highly processed foods to unwittingly slip into our diets.

So how are you supposed to know which drink is right for you after dinner or at the bar in town? It is difficult.

What causes alcohol to be used so much?

The concept of processed foods was first proposed by Carlos Monteiro, a professor of nutrition and public health at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. In 2009, Monteiro argued that nutritionists should not only take into account the nutrients in foods – such as sugar, fat and sodium – but also the amount of processing involved in them. do.

While some foods, such as raw vegetables and dried fruits, are “unprocessed” or “minimally processed”, most foods are “processed” in some way (think canned peaches, bread baked goods, cheese or roasted vegetables). Not all the process is really dangerous – in fact, it has allowed us to fight hunger by storing food throughout the year and lack of vitamins by fortifying our food.

However, since the 1980s, an increasing proportion of the world’s food supply has become “ultra-processed”, industrialized by adding ingredients (such as artificial colors and preservatives) and food derivatives (such as hydrogenated fats and starches). Today’s processed foods include everything from packaged breads to sugary breakfast cereals and frozen dinners — and they’re linked to a host of health problems. which include diabetes, obesity, depression and some types of cancer.

It’s hard to say whether alcoholic beverages count as UPFs, Monteiro and colleagues wrote in 2019. But they provide a general guideline: fermented beverages like beer, cider, and wine count. as “made” and “ultra-processed” if they are fermented and then. the resulting alcohol is distilled – such as whisky, gin, rum and vodka.

While wine, for example, is made from fermented grapes, alcohol such as brandy is made from first fermenting grapes into wine, then heating the wine until it evaporates and causes the vapor to return to liquid. with too much alcohol. says Gavin Lavi Sacks, professor of food science at Cornell University and author of Understanding Wine Chemistry.

The concept of highly processed foods is still new and researchers disagree about which foods should be classified under it – there is a notable difference between Cheetos, which are designed to be highly addictive, and alcoholic drinks, which have been made for centuries. .

Another way to determine if a drink is UPF is to look at its ingredients. Like most foods, alcohol can have other ingredients added during processing. Some of them can be used to guarantee the product they can provide every year (because grapes, barley, hops and other basic ingredients are crops that can vary in quality from year to year). Other additives include caramel colors to make tequila batches from different years look the same before blending or tartaric acid to make wines that have lost more acidity.

Why is it difficult to know which drinks are UPF?

But it can be difficult to tell exactly which additives may be in an alcoholic beverage because most are not required to print ingredient labels or nutrition facts. In the United States, alcohol is regulated by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, which is part of the treasury department (there are a few exceptions, such as hard seltzers and wines with an alcohol content of less than 7 % by volume) – not Food and Drug Administration.

Reasoning goes back to the prohibition era. It was to ensure that “distribution channels are not controlled by unsavory actors”, said Sacks. Furthermore, “alcohol was not part of a nutritional supplement, contrary to what the FDA regulated, as part of the normal human diet.”

However, there are several ways for consumers to find out what additives may be in a drink.

Although the tax and trade department, or TTB, does not require nutrition certificates, it enforces strict information principles. For wine, Sacks says, that means the additives “must be something that occurs naturally in the grape or wine”. If the producer wants to add anything outside the list of additives approved by the TTB (and processing aids, which do not remain in the final product), they will need to relabel the product as “wine with added flavor” and include a list of ingredients. . Some producers have taken to using the term “natural wine” to mean wine made with fewer steps, but the term is not well regulated in the US, meaning they can still sometimes sneak in sulphites and sulphites. other additives.

“We know that many additives are allowed in wine and many more are allowed in beer and cocktails. As consumers, we deserve to know which products contain additives so that we by making informed decisions about what to put in our bodies,” said Eva Greenthal, senior policy scientist at the Center for Science in Public Communication, a food policy advocacy group.

The additives allowed in alcoholic beverages vary, but the most common are glycerin (sugar alcohol) and caramel colors. (TTB explains on its website that any substances “known to be safe” and food additives and colors “approved for their use” can be used in alcoholic beverages.)

Changes may be coming

But some advocates want change.

The US last updated its alcohol warning letters in 1989 to prohibit drinking alcohol during pregnancy or before driving. Now, it is considering adding more labels. In February, the agency held hearings to receive public input on labels that would reveal alcohol content, nutritional information, sweeteners and ingredients.

However, Greenthal notes that the TTB rulemaking process has been delayed four times, so it’s unclear when, or if, these changes will happen.

Getting the alcohol warning labels would be a big step, says Marissa G Hall, a professor of behavioral health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Gillings School of Global Public Health, who is currently researching that How can the US government draft an alcohol warning? names. But in the end, he says, UPF isn’t the biggest problem with alcohol — it’s alcohol itself, which is linked to many types of cancer.

Getting a liquor license could be a big step toward transparency, advocates say. But, it’s only the beginning of changing the love of American consumers – and manufacturers of highly developed products.