May 13 • [ NUTRITION ]
Which has more Carbs: Soda or Beer?
When it comes to dieting, we often don’t want to let go of the things we love. The things that got us to the point in which we now need to make the decision to adjust our lifestyle to improve our health.
As a coach, the two that stand out the most are soda’s and beer.
So, which one is better for you?
If we are being honest with ourselves, we know that neither of them do anything to enhance our health. However, as they now have low-carb options, we are able to continue to enjoy them without jeopardising our weight loss phase.
Let’s talk soda’s and what type of soft drinks are good to use in a low carb diet?
Firstly, I think it’s a no-brainer but we need to steer clear of any soda’s that contain mass amounts of sugar. Not only do these boast extremely high calories but they also negatively impact our overall physical and oral health and have addictive properties. For example let’s look at Coco-cola. While most sodas do not contain raw sugar or palm sugar, they do contain sugar syrup. A normal 600ml bottle of Coco-cola contains 64 gram of sugar. To put that into perspective, if we look at how many grams of sugar are in a teaspoon (4g) a 600ml of coke has 16 teaspoons of sugar! Can you imagine putting 16g of sugar in your cup of tea?
Thankfully, these full-sugar soda’s often have a ‘diet’ or ‘zero-sugar’ alternative. So, if you are thinking ‘will diet coke or coke zero effect in a low carb diet?’ The answer is no, they will not impact your total daily calories and can be consumed while on a low carb diet without the need of tracking.
However, if your health is of greater importance to you than the speed in which you are losing weight (as it should be!), healthier alternatives to coke no sugar such as Kombucha or flavoured sparkling water should be your first choice. While sparkling waters are often free of calories, kombucha is not and therefore should be tracked. However, kombucha has an abundance of health benefits such as probiotics, antioxidants and other bioactive compounds which support great health.
Now the same principle applies to beer.
Full strength beer does have a higher caloric value in comparison to low-carb beer. Unfortunately, unlike the abundance of zero-sugar soda’s there is only 1 beer on the market that claims to be zero sugar, therefore the best low carb beer would be ‘better beer’.
What about non-alcoholic beer? I often get asked what are the pros and cons of low carb non-alcohol beer?
And the answer is simple. The pros are that it eliminates the alcohol content and it is lower carb/calorie so you are able to enjoy the ritual of a nice cold beer.
Where the con is that they provide no health benefits in comparison to other beverages such as kombucha as mentioned above and also contain calories.
Often individuals assume that sugar in drinks is the only factor that makes them ‘unhealthy’ or ‘high calorie’. However, if you ask yourself the question ‘does beer contain more sugar than fruit juice?’ you may be shocked by the answer. Beer does not contain significantly high amounts of sugar while fruit juice does. However, we need to look at the micronutrients to determine if a beverage is optimal for our health or not.
So, which is better for a low-carb diet? Soda or beer? For the most part soda will have more sugar than beer, however zero-sugar soda such as coke no sugar is going to be your best bet if isolating the question to fat loss only. If you are looking to optimise your health while keeping your beverages low sugar and low carb, like I said stock your fridge with Kombucha or sparking water.
Written by Lachy Sawtell.
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Which has more Carbs: Soda or Beer?
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