It is known that alcohol is one of the most high-calorie foods, and this is especially true for strong drinks. However, not everyone understands exactly what numbers are behind this rather vague statement.
Alcohol is a special substance in terms of calorie content: the calories contained in it are absorbed by the body differently than from other foods.
Calorie content of alcohol
Caloric content, which is also called the energy value of a product, is the amount of energy that the human body receives from a particular food product. If this energy has not been spent, it is deposited in the form of fat reserves, that is, a kind of reserve that allows you to use these calories in the future if necessary.
This is approximately how the process of assimilation of calories from ordinary food products by the human body takes place. However, the calories that enter the body in the form of alcohol are practically not able to be modified into fat: they are one of the most readily available sources of energy, and the body spends them in the first place to carry out any activity.
This, in turn, means that in the case of drinking hard liquor, a person's current energy needs are fully or partially covered by the calories obtained from alcohol. And calories from other food products are not directed to these purposes, but are stored in the form of adipose tissue. At the same time, one gram of pure alcohol contains about 7 kilocalories, so that it is largely able to meet the energy needs of the body.
Calorie content of vodka
The calorie content of a particular alcoholic drink depends on the content of alcohol itself, as well as additional substances, for example, sugar, malt and other products. At the same time, the most high-calorie, that is, having the maximum energy value, are precisely strong alcoholic beverages, since the content of calories in one gram of these substances significantly exceeds many other products. Even sugar, considered one of the high-calorie foods, contains only about 4 kilocalories per gram of substance.
In turn, vodka is one of the strongest alcoholic drinks - 100 grams of it contains about 40% alcohol, that is, about 40 grams of pure alcohol. Depending on the additives that may be included in this drink, the calorie content of vodka can range from 230 to 260 kilocalories per 100 grams. At the same time, it is noteworthy that the calorie content of this alcoholic drink is usually not indicated on the label, since it does not contain nutrients - fats, carbohydrates or proteins.
