The government has this week announced that they are planning to add information to the labels of alcoholic drinks, indicating how many 'units' they contain.
Consumers have demanded more nutritional information on their food, and graphics indicating the levels of fat, sugar and salt are are now commonplace within the supermarket chains. There is also a small graphic to remind us to eat five items of fruit a day. With the stark warnings on cigarette boxes (how can you miss them), maybe it was only a matter of time until the same thinking was applied to another of our vices.
Obviously drinks of different strengths will contain different levels of alcohol units, and successfully conveying this information to someone who may already be seeing double will obviously be a challenge - how can you subtly evoke the climate on the hills of tuscany with a rainbow-coloured pie-chart on the label? And what if I drink it by the glass, so never coming in contact with the bottle itself? I await the outcome with interest.
There is still much confusion with the unit measurement of alcohol amongst consumers, essentially because most of us are in denial about the quantity we drink. Apparently (as some bloke down the pub informed me) there is a general rule of thumb which ensures you can drink virtually as much as you want if you pace yourselves - about one unit per half hour. But we all should know that there are many factors that determine the effects of alcohol, and some clarity of information at the point of consumption can only be a good thing.
