Many people I talk to are on the Atkins diet. Quite a few of them are also wine drinkers.The question I get asked often is " how many carbohydrates are in a glass of wine"? There are actually NO carbohydrates in wine - it is primarily water and alcohol. The catch is that there is about 3 grams of "carbohydrate equivalents", 9 mg of calcium,.3 mg of iron, and 5 g of sodium. There is also only trace amounts of protein in wine,0 grams of fat, and 0.0 grams of saturated fats.  To find out how many calories are in your wine, you can use this easy chemistry formula of 1.6 x %alcohol x oz of liquid. So a 5% alcohol wine,in a 5 oz serving, means 1.6 x 5 x 5 = 40 calories. Remember that the health benefits you get from wine far out weigh the few "carb equivalents" that add to your count. Next time make your diet more enjoyable by adding a nice wine to your menu.

See you next week and remember to "keep one on the corkscrew and the other on the bottle".

Arrivederci !

Jeff Anderson
Westside Liquor Waite Park Wine Aficionado

This article makes use of information from Lisa Shea's page located at http://www.wineintro.com/basics/health/calories.html.  Her page also contains lots of other great wine information.  Thanks Lisa!