Christmas isn’t the best time of year to watch your waistline.
But that’s not just because of the huge amount of calories in mince pies, pigs in blankets and tubs of chocolate and what you should look out for.
Hidden calories in some of your favorite Christmas drinks can also help you pile on the pounds this December.
Drinking one Baileys is the caloric equivalent of eating four slices of a Terry’s Chocolate Orange, an analysis by MailOnline has found.
Meanwhile, a festive mulled wine is like eating a mince pie and a eggnog has more calories than Christmas pudding.
Here, MailOnline reveals how many calories are in your favorite festive drink.
A glass of eggnog is 335 calories, a mulled wine is 196 calories, Baileys is 153 calories, Prosecco 108 calories and a dollar fizz is 102 calories. For comparison, a portion of Christmas pudding is 301 calories, a mince pie is 238 calories, two pigs in blankets is 103 calories and four slices of a Terry’s Chocolate Orange is 164 calories.
Drinking a Baileys or Irish Cream liqueur is the caloric equivalent of eating four slices of Terry’s Chocolate Orange Milk
This website looked at the calorie content of seven alcoholic drinks that are popular around Christmas.
A 60ml glass of eggnog – which contains condensed milk, sugar, eggs and brandy – was the worst offender, with 335 calories in a portion, according to the BBC Good Food recipe.
That’s more calories than a portion of Tesco’s own Christmas pudding (301 cal).
As a guideline, men should not eat more than 2,500 calories per day. For women, it is recommended to stick to 2,000 or lower.
That means just two cups can account for a third of your daily calories.
| The drink | Calories |
|---|---|
| Mulled wine (125ml) | 196 cal |
| Baileys/Irish cream liqueur (50ml) | 153 cal |
| Bucks Fizz (150ml) | 102 cal |
| Lawyer (60ml) | 335 cal |
| Prosecco (150 ml) | 108 cal |
| Belarusian (60ml) | 246 cal |
| Old Fashioned (60ml) | 191 cal |
Eggnog can also contain 43g of sugar, which is 20g more than the sugar in a Yule Log of Belgian chocolate at Tesco.
Eating too much sugar over time can lead to weight gain and tooth decay.
NHS guidelines set the maximum daily intake at 30 grams of free sugars per day.
However, these limits only apply to free sugars – the sugars added to products – and not to the sugars that occur naturally in milk, fruit and vegetables. Some of the sugar content of these festive cocktails will come from natural sources.
A white Russian cocktail, which contains vodka and cream, was the second most caloric, containing 246 calories, according to a BBC Good Food recipe.
A festive 125 ml glass of mulled wine has about 196 calories, according to a BBC Good Food recipe, which contains almost as many calories as a Mr Kipling mince pie (238 cal).
The traditional warming whiskey cocktail, Old Fashioned, contains 191 calories, according to an online recipe from BBC Good Food – that’s more calories than a serving of Pringles (160 calories).
According to alcohol consultancy Drinkaware, a standard 50ml glass of Baileys Irish cream contains around 153 calories.
A 125ml festive glass of mulled wine contains around 196 calories, which is almost the same as eating a mince pie
Mince pies contain around 230 calories, which is comparable to many festive cocktails
One of the lightest drinks is a small glass of prosecco, which contains about 108 calories
This is almost equivalent to eating four slices of a Terry’s Chocolate Orange (164 cal) and would take about 15 minutes of running to burn, the report says.
A small glass of prosecco contains about 108 calories, according to Drinkaware.
For comparison, three party chocolates contain 135 calories.
A Buck’s fizz, made with orange juice and champagne, can add about 102 calories. Those are the calories equivalent to eating two small pigs in blankets (103 cal).
But the BBC Good Food recipe also highlights that the festive cocktail contains just 9 grams of sugar, making it one of the ‘healthier’ cocktails on the Christmas menu.
Alcoholic drinks with an alcohol content of more than 1.2 percent are not legally required to display calorie information in Britain, making it even more difficult for people to keep track of what they drink.
But London-based nutritionist Kim Pearson said displaying the calories and sugar content on alcohol would help consumers become more aware of what they drink.
‘People tend to forget to take into account the calories and sugars they consume in drinks. It can add up quickly,” Ms Pearson said.
‘It doesn’t help that alcoholic beverage manufacturers are not required to include nutritional information on the packaging of their drinks.
‘This information should be made easily accessible to consumers, just as is the case with food and non-alcoholic drinks.
‘This would help consumers become more aware of the empty calories and excess sugar they consume in Christmas cocktails and alcoholic drinks.’