Episode 37: The Dark Secrets of the Wine Industry
Functional Medicine Providers: What You Will Learn:
- How Dry Farm Wines is changing the game with keto-friendly products
- What “natural wines” means to consumers, and why most wines are actually unnatural
- The dark secrets of the wine industry that most consumers don’t know about
- Why functional medicine providers should educate their patients about natural wines
- How Dry Farm is addressing the biotoxin component of wine
- How Todd’s ketogenic lifestyle has impacted him
- The key business lessons and rules that have brought Todd success throughout his career
The Natural Wine Movement
Todd White is the founder of Dry Farm Wines, a producer of wines that are friendly to low carb, Paleo, ketogenic, and low sugar diets. He is also a writer, speaker, and leader in the organic/Natural Wine movement. Like functional medicine providers, Todd is dedicated to educating and helping people make better choices about food, nutrition, and how they think about consuming alcohol. In this episode of The FM Shift, Todd exposes the alcohol business and draws parallels to the farming practices behind so many chronic illnesses today. He also shares some of the key business lessons and rules that functional medicine providers can use to achieve greater success with their practices.
Challenging the Industry
Dry Farm Wines considers itself a health food company that just happens to sell wine. They are the largest importer, buyer, and reseller of natural/organic wines in the world. But natural wines is a term that often confuses consumers. In fact, most wines are actually unnatural because the same thing that happened to our food supply happened in the wine industry. There was a massive corporate consolidation, culminating in the top 3 winemakers producing more than 52% of all the wines consumed in the U.S. This transformation did not lead to the manufacturing of better, healthier wine, but rather faster and cheaper wine achieved through additives. There are seventy-six additives approved for winemaking by the FDA and most consumers don’t know that. The natural wine movement and companies like Dry Farm Wines are combatting this by certifying and distributing wines that are additive-free.
We Deserve Full Transparency
As functional medicine providers, we have seen how the hyperproduction of insulin has led to many of the chronic illnesses we see in practice. Todd even believes that sugar is one of the most widely abused and highly addictive drugs on the face of the planet, and there is a lot of truth in that. However, while natural wines are not sugar-free across the board, they are completely transparent about what is contained in each bottle. And that is a step in the right direction. Currently, wine is one of the only major food product that doesn’t have an ingredient/nutrition label. Lobbyists spend millions of dollars each year to prevent people from knowing what they contain. As consumers and human beings, we have the right to know what we’re putting into our bodies before we make that decision. The natural wine movement is making that push for us, and Todd is on the front lines.
Photo by Kelsey Knight
About Todd White
Todd has been a serial entrepreneur and creator since he was 17.
Today, after 15 years in the wine business, his life is dedicated to educating and helping people make better choices about food, nutrition, and how they think about consuming alcohol. As the founder of Dry Farm Wines, a writer, speaker, and a leader in the organic/Natural Wine movement, he has widely educated communities on conscious consumption. Todd is deeply passionate about bringing people together to share love and laughter through Natural Wine.
Todd is a self-described biohacker who practices daily meditation, Wim Hof breathing, cold thermogenesis, a ketogenic diet, and daily 22-hour intermittent fasting. He is also a frequent speaker on topics including ketogenic lifestyle, meditation, and the Dry Farm Wines unique company culture. His entire team gathers each morning for a meditation and gratitude practice. Built on a foundation of honesty and peace, Dry Farm Wines has seen 780% growth in revenue in the last three years, making it one of the fastest-growing private companies in the U.S., without any debt or investors.
Dry Farm Wines is endorsed by many leading U.S. performance leaders including Mark Sisson, Dave Asprey, Ben Greenfield, Robb Wolf, Wellness Mama, Dr. Dominic D’Agostino, and Chalene Johnson, to name a few. Todd has also been the featured guest on many of these influencers’ podcasts. Dry Farm Wines is the official wine sponsor for many of the leading performance conferences worldwide, sharing over 12,000 bottles each year. Such events include Paleof(x), Joe Polish’s Genius Network Conference, LowCarbUSA, Health Optimization Summit, Metabolic Health Summit, and JJ Virgin’s Mindshare Summits.
Dry Farm Wines sources pure Natural Wines and lab tests to ensure each bottle is sugar-free, lower in sulfites, and lower in alcohol. The wines are friendly to low carb, Paleo, ketogenic, and low sugar diets. Dry Farm Wines is dedicated to supporting small natural growers, currently sourcing from 600 family farmers who preserve 87,000 acres of organic vineyards and save 1.4 billion gallons of water annually by not irrigating their vines. They vet each grower’s practice and support those who focus on regenerative farming, biodiversity, hand harvesting, and the absence of industrial additives.
Dry Farm Wines is proud to be the largest Natural Wine merchant in the world, bringing awareness to Natural Wine consumption and supporting farmers who honor the soil.
How to Connect with Todd White:
- Website: https://www.dryfarmwines.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dryfarmwines/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dryfarmwines
- Twitter: @dryfarmwines
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dryfarmwines/
