What to Drink If You’re Trying to Eat Right
Alcohol is not exactly healthy food, but it can be difficult to skip a drink (or two) even if you’re trying to eat well. How can you be sure not to spoil your health too much by spending the evening out? Here’s what you need to know.
Decide how much you care
Is alcohol good or bad for you? Like most things in life, they are both. Pro: Occasionally drinking alcohol, especially red wine, may have little benefit to your heart health. ( However , this advantage is probably exaggerated .) The bad: almost everything else.
People who drink alcohol are more likely to develop cancer later in life, and research shows that even small amounts of alcohol during pregnancy is harmful to babies. Not to mention all the obvious effects that you know about: alcohol can impair your judgment, increase the likelihood of being involved in a car accident, drowning or getting injured, the next day you will have a frenzied hangover and ruin your liver if you drink heavily throughout the day. years in a row.
So overall, it’s still very bad for you. But, as with everything else, we balance risks and rewards. And many of the benefits are not health-related at all: for example, alcoholic beverages can taste good or help us relax at the end of a long work week.
I drive a car, although I know that there is a small risk of an accident, and by the same logic I drink alcohol, although I know that it poses a small risk to my health. You must decide exactly where you want to draw the line.
Know which drinks are high in calories
There is no such thing as a zero calorie alcoholic beverage because alcohol itself is high in calories. Some drinks contain calories from other ingredients, usually sugar:
- Any standard drink contains about 98 calories from alcohol. You can’t make a drink with fewer calories unless you want it to be less alcoholic.
- The most low-calorie beverages are zero-calorie spirits with blenders , such as rum and diet coke, gin and tonic for diets, or scotch and soda. They will all be about 98 calories.
- Beer contains 120 to 150 calories and more . Calories come mostly from alcohol, with some carbohydrates. Light beer, low in alcohol and therefore low in calories. Beers with a high alcohol content can be higher in calories, there are more than 200 brands of beer.
- Wines from 110 to 140 , depending on the alcohol content and the amount of sugar. (A typical drink of wine, comparable to a 1.5 ounce glass of spirits, is 5 ounces at 12 percent strength.) Low-alcohol wines are of course lower in calories, and dry wines are lower in calories than sweet wines.
- Everything super sweet is hundreds of calories , whether it’s a margarita in a cup, a spiked cocktail, or a cocktail with lots of fruit juice, cola, or syrup.
The number of calories, of course, depends on the serving size. Although alcoholic beverages are not labeled with calories, you can find calorie counters online from many manufacturers and estimated calories for popular cocktail recipes. If you have a favorite order, watch it now so as not to think about it when you are at the bar.
You Can’t Get Rid Of A Hangover
Intravenous vitamins the next morning will not cure your hangover. Also, coal will not be drunk either before or after the night. There is no specific recipe, food or drink that will neutralize the effects of alcohol on your body, both long term and short term. When you feel aroused, alcohol enters your bloodstream and is metabolized. You cannot reverse this process and act as if you have never drank.
You can slow it down a little: if you eat food with alcohol, alcohol will enter your bloodstream more slowly than if you drank it on an empty stomach. You can get the same effect by drinking the drink for an hour or two.
After all , some people swear that Gatorade or Pedialyte will cure hangovers. Sure, hydration doesn’t hurt, but don’t expect miracles (and be sure to read the labels – Gatorade is sweeter than you think). But in the end, if you want to avoid the negative effects of alcohol consumption, the only way to do it is to drink less or not drink at all.