Fructose is a naturally occurring sugar found in honey, vine fruits, berries, and most root vegetables. It is an important carbohydrate, your liver converts it into glucose so your body can use it as fuel. But fructose also exists commercially and is bonded with other types of sugars. It is added to products such as fruit juice, and foods that require browning. Fructose is also the sugar used to create high-fructose corn syrup. While in its natural form it can be a good sugar, too much of it can cause other issues.

When looking at alcohol-free alternatives, it’s important to think about the type of sugars we are consuming and make our decisions based on concrete information. We hope this blog will help you to do exactly that. What does alcohol do to our weight? The effects of alcohol on our weight are two-fold, as it affects our ability to make healthful choices. Have you ever driven to work instead of walking because of a hangover? Alcohol also affects the way in which we choose our foods, and how our bodies burns calories. Whilst the sugar content of non-alcoholic drinks is usually as high or higher than their alcoholic counterparts, it does not mean you are always drinking more calories. Some soft drinks are lower in calorie count. With 7 calories per gram, the number of calories in alcohol is second only to fat which has 9 calories per gram. The first thing to say about Bavaria beer is that it’s not from Bavaria. It seems that the Swinkels family, who’ve been brewing in the Netherlands since 1719 took their inspiration, and the name of their beer, from the master brewers of southern Germany. You may also remember the Bavaria brewery as the people who staged a very orange marketing ambush at the 2010 football World Cup, much to the annoyance of FIFA and the tournament’s sponsor, Budweiser. Consider also that artificial sweeteners may distort your perception of what is and isn’t healthy food. If you can drink something that tastes sweet yet has zero calories, you may lose your focus on what is and isn’t calorific and nutritionally sound. Some people will justify eating foods containing high levels of saturated fat by drinking zero-calorie drinks.

Look for drinks that contain natural sugars. Kombucha is a great alternative to your big-brand sodas, as they are mostly made using cane sugar, and rarely contain added sugars and E numbers. Kombuchas that are flavoured with fruit are likely to contain more sugar, while those that focus only on the tea are likely to have lower sugar content. Alcohol-free wine is similar to beer in that it will usually be higher in sugar, but lower in calories than its full-strength counterpart. You will find that it will likely taste sweeter, and may not give you the same balance of flavour as full-strength wine. Alcohol also helps to provide the body in wine, so without it, the drink may seem thinner. Try looking for botanical blends as an alternative, which provides some of the nuances of flavour found in some more robust wines. If calories, weight, or dieting are a concern for you, you might want to consider how diet and zero-calorie sodas will affect your long term goals for a healthier body. Are they a tool you can use effectively? Will they hinder you from getting to the bottom of your relationship with food, sugar, calories, and your body? Calories in alcohol vs sugar in alcohol The enzyme Aldh1a1 is responsible for converting alcohol to fat, and this fat builds up around your essential organs. This effect of this enzyme is suppressed by oestrogen. You may notice that men tend to gain a ‘beer belly’ at any age as their oestrogen levels are low, whereas women may feel that fat piles on faster around the waist as they go through menopause and oestrogen levels dip. What about sugar?

You may experience cravings for sweet things when you stop drinking alcohol. This is because alcohol gives you a dopamine hit and affects your brain chemistry. Sugar can have a similar effect on your energy, elevating your mood; think about the dreaded sugar high that kids get after too many sweets. When your brain is crying out for the buzz that alcohol gives you, the logical alternative may be to reach for something sweet instead. Royal Swinkels Family Brewers do know a thing or two about brewing. They’ve been at their game since at least 1773, and have been owned and run by the Swinkels family for more than seven generations. In their home country of Holland they are second only to beer behemoth Heineken for sales and beer output, and they also are large producers of malt, milling and toasting nearly half a million tonnes per year, with about one third of which is used in their own brews. Despite offering a range of full alcohol beers, Swinkels’ only wheat beer is their Bavaria 0.0% Wit, which I find strange for a company whose home country is celebrated for the style. Alcohol-free wheat beers tend to work well and provide most if not all of the flavours and aromas that a standard full-fat wit will supply. We’ve had very few low scoring nolo wheat beers here, but Bavaria’s Original still gives me (and my teeth) nightmares of cloying maltiness, and is perhaps already clouding my judgement of 0.0% Wit. Will we get a nice hit of banana esters, spicy cloves and creamy wheat? Or will we have another soft drink to throw on the pile? Let’s pop the top of this bottle and get it in a glass. Fructose is only partially absorbed in the small intestine, and will then travel to the large intestine. Here it will ferment. Long story short, this can lead to gastrointestinal symptoms such as bloating, gassiness, diarrhoea, and stomach pain. What about sweeteners? We all know that once you’ve had a few drinks you are far less likely to prepare a nutritious meal. You will likely end up skipping dinner or reaching for fast and convenient foods. These are likely to be higher in saturated fats and more calorie-dense. This, combined with the calories we are drinking will easily push us over our recommended calorie intake for the day. Lifted High Protein Lager from Lifted Brewing. Surprisingly clear considering the protein in it - 10g per can! Bready malts and stone fruits on the nose, and a malty taste which grows into a citrus bitterness. The body has more heft than your usual lager free-beer.co.uk/lifted-lager… @FreeBeer_UK - Jul 28

But aren’t some sugars good for me?

Svart/Hvit from @nogneo . Treacle, coffee, roasted malts and vanilla on the nose, restrained bitterness with more roasted grains, coffee and a slight caramel sweetness as we taste. Lovely hefty body. Could easily pass for a full-fat stout free-beer.co.uk/nogne-o-svar… #alcoholfree @FreeBeer_UK - Sep 5 Alcohol-free ciders are usually slightly higher in sugar, and only slightly lower than their alcoholic equivalents in calories. You might want to intersperse these with soft drinks or add a little sparkling water to eek them out a little. Cheers Mind pale ale from @fierceandnoble . Bready malts, peppery spice and grapefruit citrus on the nose. Bitterness when we taste, grapefruit citrus and earthy pine, this carries on through the drink. Some tropical and stone fruit manages to peek through free-beer.co.uk/fierce-noble… @FreeBeer_UK - Aug 11 Your body burns off calories from alcohol before burning calories in food. Let’s say you drink 100ml of beer, and eat 100g of stew. Your body is going to attend to breaking down the calories from the alcohol before it turns its attention to dealing with the stew. If you’re drinking regularly, your body may not be effectively burning through food calories and will store these as fat. Launched in 1978, Bavaria 0.0% has spread far and wide since then, and is on sale in most major UK supermarkets. Its creators claim it was “the first zero alcohol beer in the world”. It’s brewed alcohol-free, rather than having the alcohol removed at the end. The aim, they say, is to give the drinker “the great taste of an independent, family-brewed beer”.

Alcohol also has an effect on your blood sugar, your glucose level. It causes almost immediate spikes in your blood sugar, but also has a stimulating effect on the pancreas, causing it to secrete too much insulin. This can add up to weight gain, but most importantly it can cause hypoglycaemia – low blood sugar. That’s why you want a kebab when you head home, or a fizzy pop when you’re hungover. It takes time to rebalance your blood sugar levels. You might find yourself eating more when you stop drinking. Alcohol can be satiating and filling, you may even have drunk when you were actually hungry. When you stop doing this, your body probably tells you it’s hungry more frequently. But aren’t some sugars good for me? For example, Bavaria alcohol-free wheat beer contains 3.6g of sugar. Hoegarden’s full-strength wheat beer contains just 0.1g of sugar. But the overall calorie content of Bavaria is only 27kcal, while Hoegarden’s is 58.6kcal. So you may want to think about where you are happiest to make your compromise. Are you wanting to reduce calories? Then maybe an alcohol-free beer is a better option, despite its sugar content. What alcohol-free drinks to have? There are five approved artificial sweeteners: saccharin, acesulfame, aspartame, neotame, and sucralose. It is believed that these sweeteners can actually alter the way in which you taste food. These sweeteners are potent, a small amount can be perceived as far sweeter than a larger amount of standard table sugar. Eazy Peazy from @amundsenbrewery . Aroma is full on tropical - juicy mango and pineapple, citrus orange, resinous pine. Tropical fruit sweetness when we taste, with more citrus coming through and bringing in the bitterness, along with some earthy notes free-beer.co.uk/amundsen-eaz… @FreeBeer_UK - Jul 20

Calories in alcohol vs sugar in alcohol