by Bridget N. Watts

Created on: September 22, 2008   Last Updated: April 26, 2011

These days you can get almost all food and drinks in so-called light versions. They are supposed to look and taste the same, yet contain much fewer calories. You might think this is a great invention. However, if light products really looked and tasted exactly the same as their full calorie counterparts, then why don't all these products just get replaced by healthier versions permanently? They don't get replaced simply because light products just do not taste as good as the regular stuff does. This applies to many products, including potato chips, ice cream and especially beer.

Beer is supposed to have a rich and full flavor. I am talking about real beer here, and not about watery lagers like Budweiser. Light beers might contain fewer calories than regular beer does, but they just do not have the same delicious taste. I am not saying that all light beers taste horrible, because they do not, but it just is not true that light beer tastes as good as regular beer does. Perhaps when it comes to beer, people should just enjoy it the way it is supposed to be enjoyed and not worry about all the calories it contains.

If calories are very important to you, you can always choose not to drink beer in the first place. There are many other alcoholic beverages, and of course also non alcoholic ones, that contain much less calories. For example, a glass of wine contains only about half the calories a glass of beer does. Yet it still has the nice full taste wine is supposed to have. Have you ever heard of light wine? Of course you have not. No one would ever even think of making a low calorie alternative for wine, because people would find this unacceptable. So if low calorie wine is not acceptable, why is low calorie beer?

The argument that fewer calories are better and prevent you from gaining weight might be true in general, but not when it comes to beer. Most people who like to drink beer like to drink it in large quantities. At least, I know of very few people who would only have one single beer per occasion. Thus, the amount of calories one consumes on a single occasion is still much more than one needs on a daily basis, even when you switch to light beer. In conclusion, what I am basically saying is that light beer does not taste as good as regular beer does, and seeing as the calories you save do not really help you much anyway, you might as well stick to the regular stuff.

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