Should the Reformed Alcoholic Avoid Food with Traces of Alcohol?

The short answer is “yes” but the longer answer is “easier said than done”!

Out of all the people who drink alcohol, the vast majority (maybe 90%) never develop a problem with addiction, which we’ll call alcoholism for convenience in this short essay.

Of the ten percent who develop a problem, only a certain percentage succeed in putting down the bottle. In fairness, not everybody wants to stop and perhaps, many don’t need to. Further, many can live a relatively normal life[span] despite what others would call excessive drinking. So let me whittle that 10% to the fraction who know they have a problem and want to quit (or “cut down” – good luck with that!!!)

I’m definitely one of those who realized he had a problem and sought to stop and was able to, with outside help. I’ve been sober for well over twenty years – emphasis on “well”, as several chronic health issues virtually disappeared once I finally said “enough.” Compared to many who give up drinking, my physical recovery has been easy in terms of abstinence. I did “pay” in other ways, such as the emotional and financial costs to get out of a bad relationship. It’s worth citing that in recovery I’ve never had any desire (craving) to drink…some people do, and for them, it’d probably make sense to avoid alcohol as much as possible, even that trace amount from the vanilla flavoring, for example.

But here’s the fly in the ointment: Even though I gave up drinking (to excess), it turns out that all these years I thought I was sober, I’ve been “drinking” alcohol unawares and gaining none of the dubious “benefits” but also (thankfully) none of the negatives either. Of course there’s a catch: the amount of alcohol was trace quantities. And that’s the topic of this essay.

The recovery community, e.g. Alcoholic Anonymous cautions the newly recovered to beware of alcohol that may lurk where one doesn’t normally think of it being. Many drugs contain alcohol, such as over-the-counter cough and cold medications, mouthwash, and so forth. These are usually labeled so at least there is some warning. Many common dishes are prepared with alcohol.

Ah, but it turns out that alcohol is in a lot of the foods and beverages we drink. Not just what’s deliberately added, as in coq au vin, but what is naturally present. Some of these might be fairly obvious. For example, “non-alcoholic” beer may have up to 0.5% by volume. Is that a problem? I honestly don’t know. I can say, with a fair degree of certainty, that for me it isn’t. But it might be for the next guy. The “official” advice from the recovery community is common sense: they usually take a conservative approach and say it’s best to avoid it when in doubt.

I believe a more nuanced view is possible, however. Did you know that alcohol is in a whole list of foods and beverages not normally associated with drinking? This includes many fresh fruits, especially as they ripen. Now, most anyone would recognize grape or other juice that had fermented as smelling of wine – very poor quality wine probably, but with enough alcohol, perhaps, to catch a buzz. But here’s cause for concern: It turns out that even apparently unfermented juice may have traces of alcohol too. Usually these are far under 1%. Is that cause for concern? Maybe it is.

It’s not just fruit and its juices, either. Fermented milk products like yogurt or especially Kombucha have some alcohol, and even bread does.

To date, I’m not aware that AA and others have warned recovered drunks off ALL such possible foodstuffs and beverages. Traditionally, the worry was for food and drink that was prepared with small quantities of alcohol. Something cooked in wine, for example. Relevant to my current cooking interests: many if not most (liquid) spices and flavorings come in an alcohol base.

One common belief is that the alcohol will boil off during cooking. Basically, that’s a half-truth. The longer a dish is heated the more will evaporate. But half remaining seemed a good rule of thumb. Almost all would remain when heating is minimal, such as how I most often employ flavorings: to add flavor to coffee or for seasonal drinks like eggnog.

So far I’ve seemed to suffer no damage from eating breads, yogurt, even home-fermented milk (kefir). I’m only using “normal” quantities of the flavorings in my dishes. Let’s consider what might seem risky behavior: Dark Rum is often used as a flavoring. Compared to rum flavoring, for the same flavoring one might use twice as much Rum and get double the amount of alcohol. But here’s the crucial point: that amount of alcohol is (in my opinion!) trivial. I don’t go above one teaspoon in a (large) cup of coffee. I calculate that teaspoon has about 2 ml (cc) of pure ethanol. But it gets dissolved into 350 ml of liquid. (One cup = 240 ml.) That means the alcohol added by the rum is far less than 1% of the total.

I think one would find similar dilutions for other beverages and much lower per-serving amounts in cooked or baked goods.

Yes, it’s a calculated risk. In AA they have the concept old-timers call “romancing the drink.” By this they mean, I guess, that sometimes a person in recovery will wax nostalgic, wishing he could have “just one,” or how good the old times were, etc. Honestly, I don’t think I’m at risk here however. Now I admit that if I were to start experimenting with two teaspoons, and the quantity kept growing, I could be headed for trouble. Rum was never a favorite drink (I rarely drank hard liquor or mixed drinks and when I did, I always regretted it the next day.) No, my poison of choice was beer. Fortunately, to the best of my knowledge McCormick doesn’t sell a beer flavoring and I’d not want it in my morning coffee even if they did.

But so far, so good: Using sensible amounts of flavorings has produced no urge to drink the pure stuff, or to increase the dosages. If I keep it in the 1% or preferably even lower ranges, I think it’s safe. Supporting my case is the amazing variety of foods and drinks that naturally contain some ethanol, usually tiny amounts. So far, that occasional yogurt or glass of fruit juice hasn’t turned me back into a raging alcoholic, driving down to the store for a twelve pack, box of wine or bottle of hard stuff.

It’s a calculated risk for those who are in remission from alcohol abuse. Of course the safest advice is to avoid foods with added alcohol. Avoid the deliberate temptations. But, as my research found, it turns out that unless he’d gone to drastic measures, the most militant teetotaler has been ingesting ethanol all these years, even though it was probably measured in parts per thousand or ten thousand.

Estimating the annual amount of residual alcohol

It’d be no easy feat to even find a ballpark estimate of the residual alcohol in one’s diet. I’ll use what I suspect is a high estimate. Let’s assume that I add one teaspoon of 80 proof liquor to my coffee(s) each day (or its equivalent in alcohol-based liquid flavorings).

One teaspoon = 4.92 ~= 5 ml.

80 proof = 40% ethanol -> 2 ml. of pure alcohol per dose/day.

Now we’d like to find out how much alcohol is in one typical alcoholic beverage. Of course that’ll vary, but estimates I find are: beer 5%. A standard beer is 12 oz = 355 ml. So 5% of 355 ~= 18 ml (rounded up.) Google informs me a standard shot of booze = 1.5 oz = 44 ml -> ~ 18 ml ethanol/serving. So let’s go with 18 ml.

That means that the hidden alcohol content of my diet is 2/18 = 1/9 of a single drink of alcohol.

Aside: When a person drinks to excess, they drink many, many drinks. Lots of people drink 9 drinks/day which you’ll note is 100 times my estimated hidden daily intake. And also remember that my estimate may well be on the high side.

Now comes the fun part: How much “hidden alcohol” do I consume per year? Well, that’s easy enough: 365 days/year * 1/9 drink/day = 365/9 ~= 41 drinks per year. Yes folks, it looks like those who’ve sworn off the demon rum could be inadvertently consuming the equivalent of nearly 7 six-packs of beer. I’d go through not quite 2.5 750-ml bottles of rum, for example.

Of course there’s a lot of uncertainty in my estimates. If as I suspect is likely, the residual alcohol in your diet is lower, then you annual total might be “only” 4 beers or shots per year. My main point here is that even using fairly high assumptions, the trace amounts of alcohol in normal food and drink are a non-problem for most people. At least it is for me.