Americans to get some nutrition labels on their booze: Should we?

It was announced earlier this month that American alcohol manufactures can now voluntarily add nutrition labels to their booze, similar to the ones seen on food packaging.

The U.S. Treasury Department said that beer, wine and spirits can now have labels that include serving size, servings per container, calories, carbohydrates, protein and fat per serving.

The labelling regulation comes after a decade of lobbying by hard liquor companies and consumer groups -- with clearly different goals.

"It's something consumers have come to expect," Guy Smith, executive vice president of Diageo, the world's largest distillery, tells CBC. "In time, it's going to be, why isn't it there?"

Because the labels are voluntary, not a single U.S. beer or wine manufacturer is expected to use them. In large part, this is because they would rather label their products as a low carbohydrate or low calorie beverage than give full nutritional information.

Also see: Biggest lies on food labels

The questions is, do consumers care about having nutritional labels on their booze? Do they pay attention to calories and fat? Will it lead them to make healthier choices?

Michael Jacobson, director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, suggests that calories and alcohol content are the only items that should be listed on booze labels. Anything else implies that alcohol has nutritional value, which it mostly doesn't.

It is worth paying attention to because if past precedent is any indicator and the U.S. one day implements mandatory booze nutrition labels, Canada will likely follow suit.

Nutrition labels for food became mandatory in Canada in 2007, 13 years after the U.S. already had them.

However, there are a number of problems with food nutrition labels which government and policy makers are trying to hash out.

Also see: Are calorie counts actually accurate?

For example, some data suggests people only pay attention to the top few lines of nutritional contents on the labels, and largely ignore the vitamin and mineral information below.

Also, recent data from this year shows that food nutrition labels in Europe have little impact on purchasing decisions. This means, they may be doing little to curb the worldwide obesity epidemic.

Not to mention the fact that many of the serving sizes listed on the labels are completely unrealistic and disproportionate to what most people eat.

All of these challenges with food nutrition labelling become paramount when deciding whether to implement similar costly and time-consuming label processes for booze.

What are your thoughts on nutrition labels on alcohol? Would you like to see them? Would they affect what you buy?