If You’re Going to Drink Wine, Drink Organic Wine. Here’s Why.

I remember back in February when I hosted a 21-day food reset meal plan program with a group of women from my bootcamp and I started serving wine. They kind of looked at me funny—shouldn’t I be serving wheat grass juice or something? Which is fine of course—I love green juice.

But I also really love wine.

Here’s the thing. I don’t want to make eating well to be torture. It’s already going to be hard enough for some people to switch from their current eating habits to a healthier way of eating. If you like wine, you should drink wine.

But there’s a caveat (ok two caveats). There always is right?

1. I want you to try drinking organic wine.
2. I want to you to reserve drinking wine for the weekends—and keep it to a couple of glasses if you can. Look at it like your weekend treat. The kids get a treat; you get a treat.

No problem right?

Ok so what’s the deal with organic wine?
First, I’ll give you the non-scientific, personal reason: I don’t feel like crap after drinking organic red wine. I don’t get a headache. I don’t feel foggy. I can continue on the next day without missing a step. And with two small kids, this is important!

This is not the case with conventional red wine. These days if I have more than two glasses of red wine, I will be on the couch for the majority of the following day.

I don’t have time for that.

I’m also done with feeling like crap after I eat and drink. I’m not 20 anymore.

The second non-scientific (but factual) reason: it’s the same price as conventional wine. This isn’t like the grocery store where organic produce is more expensive than conventional produce. You will find that organic wine is comparable to conventional wine for the most part (prices are going to vary of course for your fancy vintages…).

Ok now for some scientific and factual reasons:

• Grapes rank #8 on the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen List. This means that grapes have been found to be the eighth worst pesticide-laden produce type out of the top 48 types tested. In fact, the USDA Pesticide Data Program found that grapes contain 56 pesticide residues; of which eight are known or probable carcinogens, 17 are suspected hormone disruptors, 10 are neurotoxins, four are developmental or reproductive toxins and 19 are honeybee toxins.

Specifically, when it comes to wine grapes the data are worse: in 2010, wine grapes received more pesticides than table grapes—just over 26 million pounds of pesticides were used on wine grapes in California alone. Contrast that with organic wine grapes: Certified organic wineries cannot use toxic pesticides, herbicides or synthetic fertilizers to grow grapes.

• Organic wines cannot contain GMOs—conventional wine can use GMO yeast.

• Organic wine does not have added sulphites, which are chemicals used as preservatives to prevent browning and discolouration in foods and drinks.

Of course red wine can provide us with health benefits like reducing mortality by 30% and it contains antioxidants like resveratrol that help to fight inflammation, but studies have found that drinking too much alcohol can significantly increase breast cancer. That’s why I suggest keeping it to a couple of glasses a week.

So those are just a few reasons why I tell people to drink organic wine if you’re going to drink wine. The options for organic wine are becoming more abundant so you don’t have to look as hard for them. The photo in this post is from my local LCBO–there’s a whole section now!

Try organic wine next time you have a glass of wine and see what you think!

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