By Penelope A. Domogo, MD
Yup, that’s right! Your favorite San Miguel gin, Tanduay rum, San Mig light or any beer, bugnay wine, etc., have calories also. Plenty calories, in fact. Hard liquor or what we call “hard drinks” contain more calories than beer or wine. Examples of hard drinks are gin, rum, whiskey, vodka, brandy. We call them “hard” because they contain almost 50% alcohol! Geez. When I hear the word “alcohol” what comes to my mind is Green Cross alcohol which is 70% alcohol. So actually these hard drinks can be used as antiseptics.
For this column, I had to do some readings and I learned that gin and rum come from sugarcane. And the flavor of San Miguel gin is from juniper – I will have to ask San Miguel where they source the juniper. Vodka is from rye or wheat or potatoes. Whiskey is from grain which could be corn, rye or barley. Brandy is from grapes. Tequila is from agave. What I know is that agave is maguey. Of course, our very own tapey is from rice. I was surprised to learn that our very popular San Miguel Beer pale pilsen is from imported barley malt and German and American hops (a kind of vine) for flavor! There now, we understand why these alcoholic drinks have calories.
One bottle (355 ml) of regular beer has 150 calories. Regular beer is about 5% alcohol. The same quantity of light beer has 103 calories. One shot of gin or any of the hard drinks has about 105 calories! One shot or one jigger is about 45 ml. although these measures differ slightly from country to country. For those who drink, you know what one shot is. And we know that drinkers don’t stop at one shot or one beer. And that is where the problem lies. Four shots would add up to 420 calories, the same amount of calories in two cups of white rice!
We know that people don’t just drink alcohol. They also eat pulutan. And the pulutan is not carrots or lettuce. In these Cordillera mountains, pulutan is surely meat. By the beach, I would surmise, the pulutan is fish kilawin. Alcohol is yin like sugar so drinkers would look for something to balance it – yang food which is meat or fish or something salty. I have heard that junk food is being explored as pulutan in the barrio. Junk foods are full of salt, but also have a lot of sugar so beware, guys, you are into double jeopardy.
Aside from the calories in the beer or gin, you get plenty of calories from the pulutan. One hundred grams pork (because that is your favorite) is 287 calories. And this is boiled pork with no fat. Of course, that won’t taste anything. So put in some “taba” and that will add more calories. And you don’t have boiled pork for pulutan. You barbecue it so you place some ketchup which has sugar. Just add the calories. In just one evening with your barkada, you would have eaten and drunk a thousand calories and more. No wonder that guys would no longer have the appetite to eat after the drinks. In parties, the men would have a drink and pulutan first before the meal, presumably as appetizer. Oftentimes, they would be so engrossed in their chitchat that they don’t realize they had taken in 4 shots already and more than 100 grams pulutan. (Just thinking about it makes me bloated.) By this time the food prepared on the table is no longer inviting. The supposed appetizer became the meal. So in our healthy living lectures, we tell the women not to force their husbands to eat when they already had drinks and they are happy as they are. “But won’t they develop ulcer?” No, they won’t because they don’t do this kind of partying every day. To be healthy, parties or drinking sessions are supposed to be occasional only and don’t binge on the food or drinks either.
What about red wine or the white wine? Five ounces of red wine is 125 calories and the same quantity of white wine has 121 calories. It is like eating one half cup unpolished rice. Five ounces is a little more than half a cup. So what you can do is when you had wine, hands off the cake or vice versa. Or decrease your rice. Sweet wines contain more- one shot sweet wine has 165 calories. Nine ounces pina colada has 490 calories! And nine ounces Margarita has 371 calories! May I just have water please.
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