Health: Alcohol Abuse

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My Lords, all the evidence shows that when people have the right information, they make better choices. Most people are not aware, for example, that a slice of cake has the same number of calories as a glass of wine. All food and drink products except alcohol must have nutritional information on the packaging. Given that these are empty calories, and given the rise in obesity and related diseases, do the Government have any proposals to change this?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Under EU regulations, companies do not have to put the calorie content on any drinks with an alcohol volume above 1.2%. I utterly agree with my noble friend that, if people knew how many calories they were consuming in just a glass of wine, they might think twice about how many glasses of wine or other drinks to have. A fact for today is that some canned cocktails contain the equivalent of six Krispy Kreme doughnuts’ worth of calories.