According to the Royal Society for Public Health, the trend for larger wine glasses mean that we're less aware of how many calories we're drinking - and today the EU will vote on whether or not alcoholic drinks should carry nutritional information. Argh.
The 'argh' referring to the fact that even a small glass of wine has 160 calories - which Sarah Knapton from the Telegraph hilarious likens to 'a slice of madeira cake'. That makes us both concerned about the amount we drink, and also the fact that people have started using madeira cake as a measurement for wine calories. How should we measure calories in beer? By slices of malt loaf? Mmm, malt loaf.
Anyway, two large glasses of wine checks out as more calorific than a portion of McDonald's fries - and smashes the recommended daily alcohol allowance for women. Rubbish. 'Among adults who drink an estimated 10 per cent of their daily calorie intake comes from alcohol,' Professor Sim wrote in the British Medical Journal. 'With the insidious increase in the size of wine glasses in bars and restaurants in the past decade it seems likely that many of us have unwittingly increased the number of invisible calories we consume in alcohol.
'Information provided to consumers must be honest and useful. Alcohol content in units and calorie content in calories should be included on both drinks labels and menus. There are no reason why calories in alcohol could be treated any differently from those in food.'
A recent survey found that 80% of adults questioned didn't know the calorie content of drinks, and most were unaware that alcohol contributed to the total calories that they took in each day. Most were in favour of calorie labelling on alcoholic drinks, and we're bregrudgingly in agreement: as anyone who has ever ordered food in a Wetherspoons will know (they have the calories on the menu, and it's horrifying), it really affects how much you eat/drink. Which is probably a good thing.
Watch this space for how the EU vote goes...
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Picture: Matilda Hill-Jenkins
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.