Why are there no nutritional facts on alcoholic beverages?

June 26, 2006 12:13 AM

Why are there no nutritional facts on alcoholic beverages?
posted by isopropyl to Food & Drink (7 answers total)

The Beck's I have in my fridge does, and I'm pretty sure the wine cooler (malt beverage) I had the other day did too. Though it doesn't look as extensive as what you find on other food items. Maybe they aren't required to but some do anyway to some extent?
posted by Orb at 12:35 AM on June 26, 2006

Rules governing alcoholic-beverage labeling suffer from jurisdictional gaps between the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Treasury Department’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB, formerly the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms). The FDA can weigh in on alcoholic- beverage labeling in only a small number of cases. And, TTB has no institutional expertise in diet or nutrition. Adding further confusion are TTB’s inconsistent standards for beer, wine, and hard liquor, and the abundance of products that increasingly blur those three traditional categories of alcoholic beverages.
posted by Mr. Six at 12:43 AM on June 26, 2006

I'd say "because there's no law that requires it" would pretty much sum it up.
posted by Rhomboid at 1:23 AM on June 26, 2006

For what it's worth, there is at least one beer which does list its nutritional contents. I'm not sure if it's available overseas, but here in Australia there is a low carb beer called Pure Blonde which lists it all in a nutritional table.

To answer your question, though, in Australia (at least) Rhomboid is correct. The law does not explicitly state that a nutritional table is required. I suspect that it is the same in many overseas countries, particuarly those where capatalism rules. If you're in government, are you really going to upset big business (such as McDonalds, KFC and the brewries, the latter of which alone gives you a very healthy boost to your bottom line via luxury tax) by forcing them to tell their customers how bad their food is for them? I think not.
posted by Effigy2000 at 1:51 AM on June 26, 2006

Lack of legal requirement is one reason but two others are, I suspect, "lack of consensus on nutritional information (such as recommended daily intake)" and "fear of legal or regulatory reprisals" as being two other important factors.
posted by rongorongo at 3:59 AM on June 26, 2006

Effigy2000, your point is weakened by including fast food - they do provide nutritional information.
posted by jacalata at 7:40 AM on June 26, 2006

Effigy2000, your point is weakened by including fast food - they do provide nutritional information.

Some don't. Quiznos doesn't, for example. (For a few of its products, yes. Not for all of them by far.)

For those who do it's mainly a marketing/PR thing. "See, it's not quite as unhealthy as you thought" or whatever.
posted by kindall at 8:13 AM on June 26, 2006