Dispelling the Greatest Culinary Urban Myth

posted October 10, 2006
by Victoria Wesseler, A Healthy Bite

It is perhaps the greatest culinary urban myth of our time. You’ve heard it stated repeatedly on cooking shows. The chef adds a cup of wine to a delicious looking dish simmering away on the stove, leans into the camera for his/her close up, and confidently says, “We’ll give the alcohol a few minutes to cook out.” Or with a dismissive wave of a hand, assures us with, “Don’t worry about the alcohol, it will all cook out in just a few seconds.” Sadly, his or her confidence in the presumed disappearing act of the alcohol is misplaced. Research proves that the alcohol does not all cook out.

Wines and spirits are popular ingredients in many sweet and savory dishes. They add a flavorful dimension to entrees, sauces, and desserts. In our calorie conscious world, many cooks will often use a wine or spirit to add flavor to a dish in place of higher calorie fats such as butter or oil.

Because alcohol (ethanol) has a lower boiling point (78.5 degrees C) than water (100 degrees C) the presumption among many home cooks and culinary professionals has been that the alcohol cooks out when it is exposed to heat. But in 1992, a team of researchers at the University of Idaho, Washington State University, and the United States Department of Agriculture set out to confirm this assumption and found the assumption did not hold true.

In their study*, six recipes were prepared using various sources of alcohol including Burgundy wine, dry sherry, brandy, crème de cocoa, and Grand Marnier. A variety of preparations were used including applying no heat and refrigerating overnight, adding alcohol to a hot sauce, flaming, oven baking, and simmering (both 30 minutes and 2 ½ hours). Alcohol retention, after preparation, ranged from 4%-85% and was dependent upon a number of factors such as cooking temperature, size of the cooking vessel, cooking time, and the presence of other ingredients in the prepared dish. Breadcrumbs, for instance, which might absorb some of the alcohol and prevent it from evaporating.

Interestingly enough, the cherries jubilee recipe had one of the highest alcohol retentions at 77%-78% after the flames died out! The researchers explained this by saying that “with a flaming dish, alcohol loss is primarily the result of alcohol combustion. The alcohol continues to burn as long as minimum alcohol vapor pressure is maintained. Once this vapor is reduced below a certain point, the alcohol ceases to burn, which happens during flaming and thus accounts for the relatively high retention of alcohol during the process.”

After they reviewed their data, the research team concluded that “the assumption that all alcohol is evaporated when heat is applied during cooking is not valid.”

For home and professional cooks alike, this information is extremely important. There are many individuals who for age, health, religious, and/or personal reasons do not include alcoholic beverages in their diets and should not be served food prepared with alcohol. When cooking for these individuals, alcohol should never be used as an ingredient in the dishes served to them. Some of the alcohol will always remain in the prepared dish.

And, cautions Bonnie Taub-Dix, MA, RD, CDN, National Spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association and Director, BTD Nutrition Consultants, if the alcohol remains, so do the calories associated with it. She notes if you are substituting wine or spirits for fats or oils in your cooking in the hopes that the alcohol and the calories associated with them will both “all burn out and just leave the flavor behind”, that isn’t going to happen. You will still have to count some of the calories from the added wine or spirits.

My goal is to dispel this urban culinary myth and I need your help. Now that you know the facts, pass them on. And if you know any folks at the Food Network, please email them the link to this column!

*Jorg Augustin, PhD, Evelyn Augustin, MS, Rena L. Cutruffelli, Steven Hagen, PhD, and Charlene Teitzel. Alcohol Retention in Food Preparation, Journal of the American Dietetic Association, April 1992, Volume 92, Number 4.

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Visitor Comments

RE: alcohol in food comment by sita at 2006-10-12 04:34:22
Thanks. I hate to be conned. If a person wants to consume alcohol s/he should be aware of this. I'll pass on this message to all my hep friends who do use wine in cooking diet meals.

RE: RE: alcohol in food comment by Karen at 2006-10-14 13:37:32
Thank you for this informative article. I have a son who was born with some liver damage. Even though he is grown now he still needs to stay away from alcohol. I had always thought that it was ok to use wine in my cooking, but now I won't as long as he is living at home.

RE: RE: alcohol in food comment by Karen at 2006-10-14 13:41:21
Thank you for this informative article. I have a son who was born with some liver damage. Even though he is grown now he still needs to stay away from alcohol. I had always thought that it was ok to use wine in my cooking, but now I won't as long as he is living at home.

RE: Urban Myth - Alcohol in Cooking comment by Nita at 2006-10-15 12:29:25
Having a minor child in the house, this is very informative. I've often been told (and believed) that alcohol in the sauce for dinner was not a problem with my kids. Nice to know the truth.

RE: Food Network comment by MurphyTheFrog at 2006-10-15 17:21:44
Good Eats, the Food Netorkprogram hosted by Alton Brown is very clear about this when he cooks with alcohol. I forget which program it is, so it may be a new thing, but I have definitely heard him tell his viewers that, contrary to popular belief, all the alcohol certainly does not cook off or evaporate.

RE: alcohol in food comment by smussyolay at 2006-10-16 23:01:06
as a recovering alcoholic, this topic is often bounced around the rooms of AA. as alcoholics, we have a disease that has several components. one is the obsession of the mind that compels us to think about drinking and want to drink when we are not drinking, but the other is referred to as the "allergy of the body," which is the phenomenon that occurs when an alcoholic takes alcohol into his/her body. it triggers a craving such that an alcoholic wants more alcohol and is not really ever satisfied. total abstinence is the only way to avoid this "phenomenon of craving." being so, we want to avoid alcohol, and having foods with alcohol in them is always a dilemma for recovering alkies. some of us are wont to say, "but the alcohol cooks out." this sheds new light on the matter.

RE: alcohol in food comment by Arti at 2006-10-24 21:50:19
This is an interesting article, but I think it would have been even better with a couple more specific examples aside from the cherries jubilee. You listed briefly the different methods whith which the researchers approached different prep methods, with results ranging from 4% to 85%...that is quite a large difference. It would have been helpful to know which method and dish had a very low retention of alcohol verses the cherries jubilee with the very high retention. With a broader spectrum of retention rates, readers may be better able to make their judgement calls. If a particular dish only retains 4% of the alcohol, then perhaps for most people, it's not a particularly worrisome issue.

RE: alcohol in food comment by Rhapsody at 2006-10-30 15:12:03
I don't think a small amount of alcohol used in some recipes would make a big difference I use a cup of wine in my spagetti sauce which cooks all day even if some of the alcohol remains it would not be much. I too would like to see more examples of dishes prepared with alcohol and how much remains. I also take into account the amount of alcohol verses the total liquid in a dish.

RE: alcohol in food comment by Lynn at 2006-11-05 14:18:50
I know this may sound silly, but if the alcohol used in food does not cook out (which I have been telling my friends anyway, and they are wont to believe me), what about vanilla extract? True, it is a trivial amount of alcohol, but for a person that is an alcoholic, for example, is vanilla extract a problem? And what about vanilla extract in things that are not cooked, such as icings. Could this cause a problem for alcohol-allergic persons? Just curious, because I have several recovering friends and I don't want to hinder their recovery. Thanx.

RE: response to alcohol in food comment by Victoria Wesseler at 2006-11-07 07:16:20
Lynn, your question is a good one. I tried to contact the national AA several times regarding this issue when I was researching the original column and no one returned my calls or responded to my email. So, I cannot tell you what the threshold amount is for triggering an alcohol related response in an individual. And I am not sure that data exists at all. If any reader has access to that, please send it to me to share with everyone. I do know that certain religious groups consider vanilla extract to be an alcohol and do not condone even its minimal use in foods for their members. With respect to non-cooked foods--In the study, they did not test alcohol based extracts but they did test a Brandy Alexander Pie which had crÃ¨me de cocoa and brandy added to it. The non- cooked pie was refrigerated, uncovered, overnight and retained 70-77% of the alcohol that was added. When you are cooking, there are several substitutes that you can use for alcohol based vanilla extracts. You have inspired me to write a column on this for a December posting so stay tuned! In the meantime, ask your local library to get you a copy of the complete study that I refer to in the cooking with alcohol column. I think you will be very interested in the research and all the details.

RE: response to Victoria's comment comment by ezagaaikwe at 2006-11-30 20:34:11
I'm not surprised that no-one from AA returned the previous commenter's call on this issue. To quote one of the 12 Traditions: "Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the A.A. name ought never be drawn into public controversy." I'm glad I stumbled on this article. It's good information to have. I'm less fussy about "eating" wine than some recovering folks are, who won't even touch extracts like vanilla.

RE: THANKS! comment by Heidi at 2006-12-27 11:56:37
with my personal beliefs i do not consume alcohol, and i was online looking at fondue recipes and it is impossible to find any without alcohol and on every website it said add how ever much alcohol, and it would cook out, and i never believed it, and certainly would never make any dishes with alcohol in them...its nice to know i wasnt crazy and this is a proven fact

RE: comment by KND at 2007-10-03 17:50:09
I too am a 5 year recovering alcoholic and I think it comes down to personal choice- we DO use some white wine in 2 dishes in our cooking (1/4 cup, very sparingly). I've tried the non-alcoholic versions of said recipes and they're just not as savory, IMO. But that does not mean I'd voluntarily eat cherries jubilee or tiramisu (no matter how much I miss the rum/whiskey AND those desserts!) There are several "schools of thought" on this matter and I think the best way of dealing with it is asking your alcohol-sensitive guests what they prefer and accomodate as best you can...

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