Red wine

Nutrition Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hi, I have a question about drinking alcohol (red wine, in particular) during the main meals.
Here in Italy we usually drink red wine with meals (often mixing it with water), and that’s something I have been doing ever since I was 16 or something like that. However, when I began my “fitness journey” I stopped drinking alcohol without even thinking about it. Recently, though, I found out that red wine is considered an integral part of the mediterranean diet — a diet to which my family naturally adheres to, and that has been scientifically proven to be one of the best eating habits in the world. I always thought that drinking wine was that “extra” you can get away with, but I was surprised to discover that the “standard” mediterranean diet includes 2 glasses of red wine daily for men, and that many studies agree upon its supposed health benefits, so I wanted to ask you what are your general thoughts about drinking moderate quantities of red wine during meals, and what would be your recommendations to your trainees. Thanks!

Ps: I am not considering calories, or the fact that alcohol tends to make you sleepy, which is not a good thing if you plan to train within a couple of hours from your main meal.

2

I think that if you consume alcohol, then doing so with the specified volume (1 drink equivalent for females or 2 for males) can be part of a healthy diet. You probably shouldn’t do it before training and if you don’t drink at all, I’m not sure I’d recommend starting to imbibe.

3

Is it fine even in a caloric deficit, if you substract the wine calories (let’s say 150kcal) from your daily carb allotment? Or would you be significantly better off fat-loss-wise if you consumed those 150kcal in the form of carbs (potatoes or whatever) instead of wine?

4

No difference.

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