Mike Penning MP recommends that alcoholic drinks carry calorie content warnings (and giving up drinking Guinness)

This was Mike Penning, Shadow Health Minister, during a debate on health inequalities last week:

"I am becoming increasingly convinced that alcohol products should provide an indication of calorie content, because the simple fact is that if any of us or our partners were to go to any weight-reducing organisation, whether it is run by a local authority or is one of the national programmes, it would tell us that if we consume more than an average amount of alcohol, our weight will be difficult to control. I am a perfect example of that. Since I have given up drinking pints of one particular brand of alcohol—I will have to say that it is Guinness—I have lost in excess of two stone in six months. That was done on the advice of my cardiologist. Do I miss that particular form of alcohol enormously? To be truthful, yes. However, has giving it up helped me enormously? Yes, it has—it has cost me a few more pounds in suits, but I think it was worth while."

More here.