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• Posted June 8, 2026

Why Alcohol Makes You Crave Salty Snacks — And How Protein-Rich Foods Can Help Prevent Weight Gain

There’s a biological reason why booze makes a person crave bar snacks like chips, nuts, fries and pizza, a new study argues.

Alcohol appears to trigger a hormone associated with cravings for savory flavors, researchers reported recently in the journal Obesity Reviews.

This hormone, FGF21, is linked to protein appetite and, when activated, can shift cravings toward salty, umami-flavored foods, researchers found.

“Many people will recognize the experience of having a few drinks and suddenly craving something salty, like chips, French fries, pizza or other savory foods,” said lead researcher Amanda Grech, a research associate at the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Center.

“Now we have a better understanding of the hormonal dynamic at play, which may be driving overconsumption of ultra-processed foods,” Grech said in a news release.

Traditionally, the body has associated FGF21-influenced flavors with protein-rich foods like meat, researchers said.

However, modern food manufacturers have designed snack foods that act as “protein decoys,” tricking this system meant to increase protein intake into seeking foods that taste like protein but do not deliver it,” researchers said.

As a result, people overeat these snacks in a futile effort to satisfy this signal, researchers said.

For the new study, researchers analyzed dietary data for more than 12,000 participants in an Australian national health survey. Of those, 35% said they’d had some alcohol on the day of the survey.

Results showed that people ate more savory foods on days when they drank than on days where they abstained.

Each additional drink increased their savory food intake and reduced their intake of sweet foods, the study says.

“Cravings for a packet of chips with a drink (sometimes referred to as the 'aperitif effect'), a pizza at the end of a big night out, or a fry-up the next morning may be driven by the way alcohol alters the body's regulation of appetite, particularly for protein,” said senior researcher David Raubenheimer, a professor of nutritional ecology at the Charles Perkins Center.

"Our study suggests that when dietary protein is diluted, people compensate by eating more overall to satisfy the increased protein appetite induced by alcohol,” he said in the release. “In this way, alcohol may contribute to overeating particularly when ultra-processed, low-protein savory foods are readily available.”

These results also help explain why alcohol’s effects on weight gain appear to differ between people.

“Alcohol has different effects on total energy intake depending on the dietary environment, particularly whether diets are dominated by minimally processed foods or ultra-processed savory foods. It is not simply a matter of the calories in alcohol itself,” said researcher Stephen Simpson, a professor of the School of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Sydney.

If you want to have a pint of beer or glass of wine, researchers recommend keeping more nutrient-dense whole-food snacks on hand.

“If you choose to drink, it's worth being mindful of this hormonal interplay,” Raubenheimer said. “Having protein-rich whole foods readily available can help steer you away from ultra-processed foods. Think roasted chickpeas, smoked salmon, lean cold meats, prawns or oysters.”

More information

Johns Hopkins University has more on food and alcohol.

SOURCE: University of Sydney, news release, June 2, 2026