Monday, January 19, 2004

Liquor company to help you count your carbs

By NAOMI SNYDER, The Tennessean

link to article

Ever wonder how many calories are in a shot of Smirnoff Raspberry Twist? Or exactly how far off the Atkins diet a pint of Guinness will put you?

The company that owns those brands is planning to tell you.

Diageo, a United Kingdom company that sells more than 300 brands of beer, wine and spirits, is planning this year to add nutrition labels to its U.S. products. The labels will include information about alcohol content, serving size, carbohydrates and calories.

"Consumers like to have more information about all their products," Diageo North America Executive Vice President Guy Smith said. "We thought it was a good thing to do for all our consumers."

The move follows consumer groups' petitioning of the U.S. Treasury last month to mandate labels similar to nutrition labels on alcohol products.

The consumer groups - the National Consumers League and Center for Science in the Public Interest - argue that existing labeling requirements are confusing and make it difficult to compare different kinds of alcohol.

For instance, malt beverages and beer are not required to carry labels detailing their alcohol content, while wine and liquor are. Although the Food and Drug Administration requires ingredient lists for wine with 7 percent alcohol by volume or less, it does not require the same for beer, which can have 8 percent alcohol content.

The consumer groups also point out that people have little way of knowing the number of calories consumed in a typical beer or mixed drink, which can top those in the fattiest of foods. They also want to add federal dietary advice on what constitutes moderate drinking - a maximum of two servings for men and one for women per day.

Diageo is opposed to mandatory label regulations. It has no plans to add federal dietary guidelines to its labels, although it may do so on its Web sites.

There may be another reason why Diageo wants to add labels. Popular low-carbohydrate diets such as Atkins and South Beach are prompting companies to roll out low-carb beers, and some spirits already are low in carbohydrates.

"The consumer will be able to make comparisons of ... alcohol depending on what is important to them," Smith said.

London-based Diageo, which has the U.S. equivalent of $15.9 billion in annual sales, owns brands such as Smirnoff, Johnnie Walker, Baileys and Jose Cuervo. It also sells wine, under names like Beaulieu Vineyards, and beer.

Some countries already have stricter labeling requirements than the United States. The United Kingdom and Australia, for example, require alcohol content and servings on products.

Dileep Sachan, a professor of nutrition at the University of Tennessee, said it didn't make much sense to put a nutrition label on alcohol because it doesn't have nutritional value.

"Any connotation of it being a nutrient is totally misleading and irresponsible," said Sachan, who has done research on how the body processes alcohol.

Janet Colson, a nutrition professor at Middle Tennessee State University, said she thought it was a great idea to add information about calories and alcohol content. A typical beer has about 150 calories, she said.

"We see college freshmen gaining weight, and they say they don't eat anything so they don't know why they're gaining weight," she said. "I ask them how much alcohol they're consuming."