Why does a standard shot of liquor have so many calories for its relatively small size?
In: Chemistry
Because alcohol itself (ethanol) has a lot of calories. Imagine it being like sugar syrup. It’s jazzy liquid carbs. And liquor is like 40% alcohol, so the calories rack up quickly.
*I know ethanol is in its own category and isn’t actually a carbohydrate, but this is ELI5 and EtOH is closer to sugars than it is to protein or fat.
Because it has less water and more ethanol. And ethanol has calories in it.
Even if you are talking about something with a lot of sugar, like a can of soda, most of that is still water. You are talking about maybe 20% dissolve sugar at most. But with a shot of hard liquor you could easily be talking about 50% ethanol, which you digest in a very similar way to sugar.
A shot of olive oil has nearly 4x the amount of calories of 80 proof liquor, and people add the ~3tbsp of oil that equals a shot when cooking pretty regularly. Things we can digest, in concentration, tend to be Calorie dense.
* Alcohol (Ethanol) contains calories/energy that your body can process to a limited degree via the liver.
* The body cannot store these calories; it must either convert them into energy in the liver or dump them out through the urine/kidneys.
* The liver will *preferentially* burn calories from alcohol (rather than from food). If alcohol is being processed, the calories from food that otherwise would have been used end up being stored as fat instead. Thus, having alcohol in your system can indirectly result in weight gain.
* Many alcoholic beverages have sugar in them as a result of mixers or fermentation processes.
so basically liquor is mostly alcohol and alcohol has a lot of calories like way more than carbs or protein. plus they add sugars and flavorings which bumps up the count. it’s kinda sneaky how it adds up huh?
IIRC your bodies way of processing alcohol involves sending it down the same pathway that fats are metabolised on. So it’s as calorie dense as you can get. Basically it’s equivalent to doing half the shot of cooking oil.
Think of it like energy density.
Think of gasoline. Gasoline has a LOT of energy (calories)
Alcohol is very similar to gasoline. While it’s not as energy dense as gasoline. It is still a combustible liquid.
Imagine how a gallon of gas can move a 2 ton car 20 miles. How far can 2oz of gas move a car? How far can 2oz of watered down gas move a human?
Fats contain 9 calories per gram while protein and carbohydrates contain 4 calories per gram. Alcohol contains 7 calories per gram.
In terms of caloric density, alcohol is closer to fat than it is to carbs or proteins. So a shot that’s 40% alcohol isn’t that different from a drink made of 40% fat, which you’re not doing even if you’re drinking melted ice cream.
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