Beer, Wine, or Liquor, Which is Heathiest: The Hard Stuff

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Yesterday we were able to learn the difference between beer, white wine, and red and today we will be talking about hard liquors. If you have not read the previous article you can take a gander at it here. After reading both articles, the winner for lowest calories and healthiest overall drink should be pretty obvious. Honestly, it was not what I expected it to be. Hopefully, these articles can save us all some extra lb's over the next year. Especially considering that drinking a six-pack of beer once a week for a year will translate to 15-lbs. What?!! Talk about a serious beer belly!

The Hard Stuff

The hard liquors like vodka, whiskey, and scotch tend to have the lowest calorie and carbohydrate content, but still give us a bang for our buck when it comes to antioxidants. Like beer and red wine, research has found that hard alcohols can help increase levels of the good cholesterol in our bodies. Amazingly, researchers have also found that averaging two drinks a day can increase women's risk of breast cancer by 10% or more! That said, keeping moderation in our drinking is key to getting the health benefits while still maintaining optimal health.

Generally, the higher the proof, the higher the calories and mixed drinks will always have more calories (sometimes 800 calories per drink!) than the straight liquor. One ounce of an 80 proof alcohol averages:

• Calories: about 67 (cordials can have as little as 15 calories per ounce while Schnapps can be over 100)
• Carbohydrates: 0 grams
• Fat: 0 grams
• Protein: 0 grams

Low Calorie Mixes

Mixed drinks can have as few as 100 calories or as many as 800+ for those cream and dessert drinks. Mixtures that use club soda, diet soda, or tonic tend to have a lower calorie count, rounding out to about 100 calories per serving. A great example of this is gin and tonic; this drink has 103 calories per serving! Vegetable and fruit juice mixes are another great mix option when we are counting those calories. One Bloody Mary has 123 calories and about 5-grams carbs.

One of the main reasons that things like flavored vodka have gained in popularity is because we get the flavoring of something extra with no extra calories. These flavored liquors can be mixed with tea or club soda for little to calories outside the alcohol itself. These are a few great drink recipes for those watching there weight.  mudslide mojito martini whiskey sour

Mudslide: This drink breaks the mold for healthy and dessert-like cocktails. One mudslide has about 185 calories.

Martini: Martini's are a a great option as long as it is not one of those dessert options with tons of chocolate and dairy. Most martini's average 160 calories and less than 1-gram carbs.

Whiskey Sour: For those who enjoy darker liquors, the whiskey sour clocks in at a 160 calories, but be careful, they have a whopping 14-grams carbs per serving!

Mojito: Mojitos are quite low in calories at 160 calories per serving. Lower the carbs by opting out of the sugar rim for a bit healthier option.

Does Where We Live Affect Our Health

I recently watched this video on YouTube. It was very informative on diets and healthstyle in Japan, and got me wondering about the US. Yes, we know that the US tops the World charts for obesity, but are there areas around the US that are better or worse? And where should I live if I want to diet successfully? Turns out that the answers to all of these questions were just a few searches away. Oh internets, what did we ever do without you?

As far as demographics for BMI in the US, that one is pretty easy. States were ranked depending on the percentage of people who fell into the "obese" category for the Body Mass Index.  A healthy BMI is between 18.5%-24.9%, overweight is 25%-29.9%, and obese is anything 30% and above. If you do not know your BMI, click here for a quick calculation. Although no state is the US has below 20% of the people being obese, there were quite a few with 20%-25% of people being over 30% BMI. As of 2010, those with the best score included California, Colorado, Alaska, Arizona, Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Vermont, and Utah. In 2009, Colorado was the only state to have below 20% of the population fall into the obese category.

States with the highest percentage of obesity (more than 30% of the population) were Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Arkansas, Missouri, Michigan, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and West Virginia. The state with the highest percent of obesity was Mississippi at 34%.

Although these numbers by no means say that certain states have all unhealthy people in them or are, overall, less healthy than others, it is very interesting to look at which states fall into each category. Obviously, states where health and fitness are highly encouraged (like California, Colorado, and New York) have lower percentages of obesity. These states are also less accepting of fast and preservative filled foods.

Whether we are healthier or less healthy depending on our area is a completely new thought in many research fields. Researchers are currently finding that everything from the UV index of your area to the altitude at which you live can affect your health. Those who live closer to chemical plants, smog, and fast food restaurants tend to be less healthy than those who live near fresh produce groceries and even those at higher altitudes.

Personally, I know that when we go up to Michigan (a red state in obesity), I tend to gain between 2-3 pounds per summer. Then, I come home and it is gone within two months. This is not to say anything terrible about Michigan, I just do not eat as healthy as I do at home even though we work to eat healthier every summer we are away!

P.S. For a super detailed list of obesity depending on state, check out the link here. The CDC also has some fantastic info on obesity. Most of my numbers were taken straight from this article along with tidbits from here, and here, and here... Just in case there were not enough random numbers for you to look at ;)