As many alcohol-free or low alcohol drinks can contain up to 0.5% abv,  some alcohol will be passing your lips whenever you drink them.  Which then raises the question: If you drink lots of low alcohol wine or beer at 0.5%, will you eventually have enough alcohol in you to make you feel drunk? Just doing the maths makes it sound possible.  If you can get drunk on 4% beer, then surely 8 pints of 0.5% is the same thing?  If you get drunk on 5 pints of 4% beer, you should get drunk on 40 pints of 0.5% beer. Don’t Try This At home One way I could find out would be to drink 40 p ..read more

One of the benefits of drinking alcohol-free is the reduced number of calories per drink.  With a clever switch from a traditional alcoholic glass of wine to an alcohol-free glass of wine, you could save nearly 200 calories per serving.  There’s a simple reason that going alcohol-free can save you so many calories, but not all alcohol-free wines are created equal.  If you’re not careful, you could end up drinking a lot of sugary calories if you choose the wrong alcohol-free wine. To help you pick the best low calories alcohol-free wine, I’ve pulled together a list of our lo ..read more

Many people make the switch to going alcohol-free to prove their health.  I thought that I’d have a look at the reasons why you might  make that switch and answer the question is non-alcoholic wine good or bad for you? After comparing alcoholic wine and non-alcoholic wine it's easy to come to the conclusion there are a number of health benefits in making the switch to going alcohol-free. These include reduced risk of cancer, lower blood pressure, good for weight loss, improved sleep and many more. I’ve explored each of these benefits individually from making the switch to alcohol-fre ..read more

A great alcohol-free beer goes with loads of different meals. However, one of my favourite pairings is with a good burger.  There's a wonderful simplicity and taste perfection to a great beer and burger.  It only seemed right that I’d give this another try.  Taking my time to find why thought would be the perfect burger, I found the Beef & Blue Cheese Burgers from Skinny Kitchen Secrets.  Seeing the recipe, I knew I had found something I had to try. I’d chosen the burger, what about the alcohol-free beer?  With the strong flavours promised in the blue cheeseburgers ..read more

I’m going for something a little bit different this time round.  I’ve packed the saucepan in the cupboard, left the hob switched off and fired up the oven to cook the Sticky Vegan Sausage & Potato Traybake from Wallflower Kitchen.  With fond childhood memories of something similar plus the added sweetness of golden syrup, I was really excited to give this recipe try. As for choosing which alcohol-free drink to go with this, the first choice was to decide wine or beer? As this was an oven bake with a homely feel, it made me think of reaching for a pint of real in a traditional sty ..read more

I’ve got another meal to share with you.  This one I found when looking for a carb loaded pre-run long run meal After weeks of eating the same thing on a Saturday night, I’m now trying to mix it up and keep things exciting.  That’s how I came across this Sausagey Pasta from The Slimming Foodie.  The idea of sausages in a pasta dish sounded like carb loaded heaven, as one of my favourite meals since childhood dinner is sausage, chips & beans. With my pasta chosen, the next decision was what drink should to pair with it? For a tomato based pasta dish with red meat, a red wine ..read more

For this recipe, I decided to try making a Buddha bowl for the first time. It's not something I’d planned to make, but then I stumbled across a couple of pictures of Buddha bowls and I loved the bright colours and variety of ingredients.  They really intrigued me so I decided to find something that took my fancy. After looking around I found the Vegan High Protein Buddha Bowl from Vitaly Vegan *. Choosing what alcohol-free drink to go with my first Buddha bowl was a surprisingly easy choice. As this meal was super healthy and vegan, it only seemed right to choose a drink that was low calo ..read more

With all my marathon training goes the pre-run carb loading.  I’ve been having the same meal the night before each long run, but I’m starting to get bored.  I needed a little pasta inspiration - something exciting I could try with completely different flavours.  Time to look for a new pre-run pasta meal. With Google is my friend, I started my search with something that looked tasty and stumbled across this Creamy, Garlic Pasta with Asparagus and Peas from What's Eating Her.  As one of the ingredients was white wine, it seemed only right that would try and pair this with the ..read more

As I continue to look for healthy meals while training for the London Marathon, I thought I’d try something a little different this time and choose a fish dish.  I must admit, I rarely cook fish as it’s not overly popular in my household unless it’s covered in breadcrumbs (and especially finger shaped!).  However, the one fish that everyone does enjoy is salmon, so I had high hopes when I found these Crispy Salmon Tacos from Amelia Freer. I thought I’d continue the theme of firsts and try my first non-beer food pairing, choosing a bottle of wine instead.  The problem was, which ..read more

For the second in this series of healthy recipes paired with low calories alcohol free drinks, I decided to go for a burger.  After all, I do love a good burger and I’ll have to cut these out as I try to lose weight to help me round the London Marathon. Normally a burger is classed as unhealthy and out of bounds if you’re trying to shift a few pounds - kind of like beer.  However, if you make smart choices (like choosing an alcohol-free beer), there’s no reason to miss out on your favourites.  With this in mind, I thought I’d find a burger that had made the smart choices for me ..read more