The British website Drinkaware is helping people around the world keep track of how many calories they are ingesting as they drink alcohol. The new online Unit & Calorie Calculator app is easy to use. A drinker needs to enter in how many drinks they have had of a particular type of alcohol. The choices range from beer in a pint or bottle, cider, wine, champagne, hard alcohol, and wine coolers. It is also possible to specify brands for more exact numbers. Once the alcohol is tabulated, the results of the calorie intake are revealed.

The revelation of a person’s calorie intake tends to be quite surprising. The calculator translates what a person drank into a caloric intake of hamburgers. The online app also tells the user how long it will take to burn off those extra calories. Beyond showing the enormous calorie intake that comes with alcohol, the Drinkaware app also points out if a user’s drinking habits are putting them at risk for developing an alcohol-related illness.

What is truly surprising is how many calories are in everyday drinks. The calculator breaks down the empty calories from alcohol into terms that can actually have an impact. If you down two bottles of beer at a barbecue, it is equal to eating a hamburger and will take you nearly 30 minutes of running to burn it off. If you decide to split a bottle of wine over dinner, that’s a double cheeseburger that will take almost 50 minutes of running to burn those extra calories.

While Drinkaware’s calculator does not have the ability yet to process mixed drinks, it will in the future. Robyn L. Goldberg, RDN, CEDRD, believes mixed drinks should be consumed less often. As Goldberg explained to The Fix, “Mixed drinks like a strawberry daiquiri are filled with sugar and calories. One such drink has over 500 calories and more than 50 grams of sugar. Such a drink comprises more than twice the amount of added sugar a person should have on a daily basis. Given the added calories and sugar, they should be reserved for special occasions.”

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