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Interesting question!

From this article[0] it seems ~60% of the calories in lager come from the alcohol - presumably ~40% come from carbohydrates. And from Google, acetic acid is 349 kcal / 100g, versus pure ethanol at 700 kcal / 100g. So if this approach converted 100% of alcohol to acetic acid, you'd drop the calories from lager by ~30% overall. To your question, dry wine or lower-carb beer would be proportionally even better.

The flip-side of this is perhaps consumption of too much acetic acid! It's impossible to calculate potential toxicity without understanding the strength of the acetic acid generated, though.

[0] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331119759_Nutrition...




> And from Google, acetic acid is 349 kcal / 100g, versus pure ethanol at 700 kcal / 100g.

Metabolism matters. Gasoline is over 800kcal/100g, but you wouldn't get that much from it (if anything at all).

Alcohol has a particularly long metabolic pathway, which after ingesting approximately 20-30g gets cut short to one where acetic acid is excreted (commonly known as "breaking the seal") and the overall upper energy yield limit becomes approximately 110kcal/100g.

Executive summary is that on a given session it's the first two 12oz (330ml) beers which provide most of the calories from alcohol and their contribution is on par with a snickers bar.




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