Let’s talk keto wines and whether or not we can drink on a diet. Show Many wines have little to no carbohydrates. This is good news because carbs are the nemesis of the ketosis diet. It’s important to note, however, that not all wines are keto-friendly. Let’s figure out which wines to buy and which ones to avoid when following a ketosis-driven diet. Plus, how much should you really be drinking on a diet anyway? What Are The Best Keto Wines?Ideally, a keto wine should have low alcohol (13.5% ABV or less) and little to no residual sugar. This scenario is a dry wine with 108 calories (from alcohol) and 0 carbs per 150 ml (~5 oz) serving. Not bad! Buy the book, get a course. Get the Wine 101 Course ($50 value) FREE with the purchase of Wine Folly: Magnum Edition. Get My Course Why It’s Hard to Find a 100% Dry WineRecommended wines for keto are Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Chardonnay (among others.) That said, many aren’t 100% dry. Many wines contain residual sugar. Carbs in wine. Residual sugar adds carbs to wine, and many keto diets limit carb intake to around 30g per day.What The Heck is Residual Sugar?To answer this question, here’s a refresher course on how wine is made. Before grapes ferment into wine, they are sugary. Little yeasts, including Saccharomyces cerevisiae, gobble up grape sugar and produce alcohol. Sometimes though, the winemaker stops the yeast from eating all the sugar. You might wonder,
As it happens, leaving some residual sugar in dry wine can increase the “likeability factor.” Many wines marketed as “dry” have anywhere from 0–30 grams per liter of residual sugar. Surprisingly, they taste dry. Here are a few examples: Franciscan Estate | Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon | 2014 Cupcake Vineyards | 2016 California Chardonnay Dr. Loosen | Mosel Valley “Ürziger Würzgarten” Dry Riesling | 2016 Tsantali | Naoussa Greece Xinomavro | 2016 What We Learned On Our Hunt for Keto WinesBad News: you’re not going to see RS listed on the label. The US has no labeling requirements for nutrition, so no one adds it. Additionally, we found searching for this information online complicated. It took me multiple back-and-forth emails to squeeze this information out of one producer. (Their wine had 32 g/L RS – perhaps this was why?) Good News: Many wines will fit the bill! On our searches, we discovered a few key clues:
What Wines To AvoidWines with higher alcohol levels include varieties like Shiraz, Pinotage, Zinfandel, and Grenache. You can’t blame them for it. They’re naturally high in sugar. What’s more important to avoid is wines with higher sweetness levels (anything above 30 g/L RS or 4.5g carbs). Sweet wines include Moscato, Port, and other dessert wines. If you drink on a diet, stick to moderation. For males, moderation means no more than 2 glasses per day. For females, it’s no more than 1 glass a day.How Much Should We Drink on Keto?Most short-term, in-depth keto diets do not recommend drinking alcohol at all. That said, if you’re working on a longer-term nutrition lifestyle change, your best bet is likely the moderation model:
The funny thing about alcohol is that we digest it very differently than other calories. Part of the effort happens with these handy little enzymes called alcohol dehydrogenase. Enzymes help chemically process alcohol calories through our liver, stomach, and kidneys. So, we’re still not sure if we burn alcohol calories as efficiently as other calories. In case you’re wondering: The reason why women can’t drink as much is because women have less alcohol-digesting enzymes than men. It’s a shame, but also a fact. *As we all well know, everyone’s physiology is different and some lineages ought to moderate more! Talk to a doctor or nutritionist about your unique situation. Last Word: Drink Wine… Even If It’s FollyIf you’re seriously committing to the keto thing, you might want to stop drinking altogether while your body adjusts. After this process, you might be able to start adding dry wines back into your diet. What’s life without living a little? After taking a deep dive into the keto diet and learning from others, we did notice a trend: the people who stick to a diet and exercise regime are the ones who get results. So, if we learned anything from this whole process, it’s that doing the work will get you the results you want. You can do it. Salut! Do The Math Yourself Carbs: Take residual sugar level in grams per liter (g/L) x 0.15 = grams of carbs per 150 ml serving. Calories: Alcohol calories math: Which wine has the least amount of sugar?Here are the lowest-sugar wines in the game: Dry reds, which often have under one gram of sugar per five-ounce pour: Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Syrah/Shiraz. Dry whites, which have between one and 1.5 grams of sugar per five ounces: Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay, and Viognier.
What is the healthiest wine to drink?Pinot Noir is rated as the healthiest wine because of the high levels of resveratrol. It is made of grapes with thin skin, has low sugar, fewer calories, and low alcohol content.
Which wine is lowest in carbohydrates?1. Sauvignon Blanc. Dry wines are the lowest in carbohydrates, and this refreshing white is one of the driest and crispest around (and with only approximately 2 grams of carbs per serving to boot).
Which red wine has the least sugar and carbs?Here are a few dry red wines that average less than 4 grams of sugar per 5-ounce serving, which is the standard serving size per U.S. guidelines: Pinot Noir: 3.4 grams of carbs. Merlot: 3.7 grams of carbs. Cabernet Sauvignon: 3.8 grams of carbs.
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