Are non-alcoholic wines full of sugar?
Since I quit drinking one of the huge benefits, amongst many others, was easy weight loss and no more junk food cravings.
Late-night UBER eats deliveries & cheese/choc binges before I fell into bed are a thing of the past.
I’m often asked about the sugar/calorie content in AF wines. In the past, many of them were crammed full of sugar for taste or were just pure fruit juice. If you’re taking on the challenge of not drinking the last thing you want is to pack on extra kilos.
The Good News
The good news is we’ve moved on from sugar-dense grape juice and many of the AF wines, have, if not less sugar, certainly fewer calories.
In brief, a 100ml glass of white wine will contain between 73 and 83 calories, whereas an alcohol-free version, such as Giesen Zero has only around 13 cals!
And whilst the AF versions often contain a little more sugar, their ethanol-filled counterparts have way more impact on the waistline.
Where do the calories come from?
The calories in all wines come from;
– Alcohol – 7 calories per gram ( fat is 9 cals per gram)
– Sugar – 4 calories per gram.
And, as you probably know, the body first deals with the calories from alcohol, before the calories from food.
If you’re drinking a lot your body may only be able to process the calories from the booze, and not have enough left for the food calories, which are then stored as fat!
So whilst the AF wines often contain a little more sugar, their ethanol-filled counterparts have way more impact on the waistline.
Interestingly alcoholic drinks are not legally required to list the ingredients/sugar levels whereas AF ones are….so with this in mind here’s what I can tell you.
Alcoholic Wine info
– Alcoholic Wines range from 92-300 calories ( incl red, white, sparkling and Dessert)
– Dry alcoholic wines can have 0-6 sugar calories per 100mls
– Off-dry alcoholic wines 6-21 sugar calories per 100mls.
Sugar, Carbs and Calories in a selection of ten 0.5%ABV or less wines
AF wines have approx. 70- 80% fewer calories than alcoholic wines.
Most of the AF wines will taste sweeter and have less body than alcoholic wines due to the missing ‘not magic’ ingredient. However, we can train our taste buds over time (I now prefer vegemite to marmite for crying out loud!) and I enjoy the AF wines way more than the real thing ( took an accidental sip of Chardy and spat it out a few months ago).
Here’s a list of 10 of the lower sugar content AF wines I could find. The reds tend to have a bit more sugar, so I’ll come back to them in another post.
For now, if you are considering cutting back or quitting, rest assured weight loss is a happy by-product if that’s what you are looking for unless of course, you replace the booze with Easter Eggs – so stay mindful.
All wines listed are 0.5% ABV or less.
AF Wine table
