
How Many Calories Are You Drinking?
Add up those sneaky liquid carbs
By Deepi Brar
CONSUMER HEALTH INTERACTIVE
Most of us have a pretty good idea of what we’ve eaten in a day, but it’s easy to forget to count beverages. Over the course of a day, that morning coffee or juice, lunch-time lemonade, mid-afternoon smoothie, and glass of wine with dinner can really add up!
Some tips for using this calculator:
- If you can’t find your drink listed exactly, choose the next closest alternative.
- If you add milk or sugar to your coffee or tea, select the plain or black beverage and make your additions separately (see below). You don’t need to count sugar substitutes like Equal or NutraSweet because they have almost no calories.
Your drinks may be bigger or smaller than the sizes listed, so please adjust the serving number next to your selection. (Don’t count the ice, if any).
- Many bottled juices, like Snapple and Nantucket Nectars, actually have two servings per bottle, so double-check the label. If you drink a 12-ounce can of juice, that’s actually 1.5 times the standard 8-ounce serving size.
- The same goes for larger-sized sodas -- our serving size is a 12-ounce can, but very large fountain drinks can run up to 64 ounces!
Cocktails can be particularly confusing. For example, our margarita servings are 4 ounces (not including ice). If your restaurant margarita comes in a 16-ounce glass, that’s about 8 ounces of cocktail and 8 ounces of ice so you should count it as two servings.
You can also use the Nutrition Toolbox to search our full database.
First published June 23, 2004
Copyright © 2004 Consumer Health Interactive
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