Dry January saw lots of people ditch the booze after overindulging during the festive period and start the new year on a sober and healthy note.
However, what many people don’t realise is that it’s difficult to avoid alcohol completely because it’s in lots of everyday food and drinks.
Things that we eat and drink every day, including bananas, orange juice and burger buns, all contain alcohol, sometimes in surprising volumes.
In fact, fruit juices can sometimes be above the EU ‘alcohol free’ limit of 0.5% ABV.
Alcohol is produced by the fermentation of sugars in certain foods by yeast. The yeast converts sugars into ethanol (alcohol) and also produces carbon dioxide.
One recent study by the University of Kaiserslautern in Germany examined exactly how much alcohol is in a variety of foods. The aim of their study was to find out how much alcohol people, especially children, ingest from food and drink daily.
It identified the grams of alcohol per 100g of the foods, where 1g of alcohol per 100g equals 1% ABV.
The data threw up some surprising results, with burger buns, bananas and some fruit juices all found to contain alcohol.
The food they found with the highest amount of alcohol was Burger Rolls (American Style) which had an ABV of 1.28%.
Foods that contain alcohol
Wheat Rolls - 0.14%
Wheat and rye bread - 0.29%
Burger Rolls (American Style) - 1.28%
Banana (ripe) - 0.02%
Banana (very ripe, peel with dark zones) - 0.04%
Pear (ripe) - 0.04%
cherry yoghurt – (0.02% ABV)
Drinks that contain alcohol
Grape Juice 1 0.29% - 0.86%
Apple Juice 2 0.06% - 0.66%
Orange Juice 2 0.16% - 0.73%
White wine vinegar - 2.64%
Other surprising food items that are known to contain alcohol include vinegar, mustard and soy sauce.
