Hi everyone! Earlier this year, I shared how much keto has helped me with not only losing weight, but correcting my terrible relationship with food. Since then, I've lost over 45 lbs and counting, which is awesome - but the best part personally has been finding new ways to safely eat foods I loved before.
That being said, I wanted to pop in and share my personal master list of keto-friendly food/snack replacements for anyone who may be either getting started or just curious. Some of these are already pretty well-known but I wanted to share anyways. It can also be difficult to get fiber intake on keto, so some of these should help with that. These are also generally great for getting off really high sugar/high simple carb filled foods outside of keto, which has helped my partner quite a bit.
I've noted the food, brand, item name, calories, and net carbs below. Some of these items are available at certain stores only so you may have to do some digging to see what's available locally. All info is based on 1 serving:
- Tortillas:
- Mission/Zero Carb/110 cals/0g net carbs
- Mission/Carb Smart/70 cals/2g bet carbs
- Bagels:
- Sola/Various flavors/110-140 cals/4-6g net carbs
- Bread:
- Lewis Bake Shop/5 Seed/40 cals/1g net carbs
- Sola/Deliciously Seeded/40 cals/1g net carbs
- Chocolate/granola:
- Gourmet Gatherings/Dark chocolate keto clusters/~80-100 cals/~4-6g net carbs
- Ice cream:
- Rebel/Various flavors/200-300 cals per serving/0-6g net carbs (minus 1-2 flavors that are 8-9g)
- Chips:
- Quest/Protein chips/140 cals/4g net carbs
- Sonoma Creamery/Pizza Crisps/~150 cals/~2g net carbs
- Protein bars:
- Quest/Various flavors/170-190 cals/4g net carbs
- Fitcrunch/Various flavors/190-210 cals/5-6g net carbs
- Soda:
- Coke/Zero, Diet, Zero Cherry/0 cals
- Diet Dr Pepper/0 cals
- A&W Diet Rootbeer/0 cals
- Coffee creamer:
- CoffeeMate/Zero Sugar, Various flavors/10-15 cals/0-1g net carbs
- Milk:
- Member's Mark/Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk/~30 cals/~1g net carbs
- Candy:
- Jolly Rancher/Sugar Free/35 cals/0g net carbs
- Russell Stover/Various sugar free chocolate/~130 cals/0-2g net carbs
- Reese's/Zero sugar cups/110 cals/0g net carbs
⚠️* Sugar alcohols in excess cause a lot of bloating/gas and will easily have you glued to the toilet if you eat too much. Pace yourself and try to stick to one serving size every 5-6 hours. If you struggle with impulse or portion control then I recommend not indulging in these until you feel confident that you can reasonably portion control*.
- Wine:
- Bruts (Champagne/bubbly wine)/90-120 cals/1-2g net carbs
Feel free to ask any questions, otherwise, best of luck - you got this! 🤠
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Heavy cream is a great replacement for milk
What if you want to drink a glass of milk? Do you drink a glass of heavy cream?
I gave up milk altogether. But on occasion, get a glass of ice, put a shot of sugar free flavored syrup like amaretto, and fill with half heavy cream, half seltzer water.
Rebel ice cream brand makes a milk, but last I checked it isn't in stores on the east coast US where I live.
Their website used to offer milk as an online option, but now it says you should "Request in Stores." I haven't seen it in my area either (also east coast), only the ice cream.
Fair life makes milk that is filtered. The 2% reduced fat is 6g. I count that as a win for me.
1 part heavy cream to 2 parts water is a substitute for milk.
Would this be a good thing to knock cravings out? I get the most intense cravings for sugar and sometimes I give in… I need something that will just kick the cravings ass lol
You can make lots of sweet treats on keto. You just have to use one of the good sweeteners: allulose, stevia, monk fruit.
Several times a week I will make a hot chocolate at mid-day using 1 part heavy cream, 2 parts water, 100% cacao, allulose and/or stevia.
I might be weird but yeah I will drink straight up heavy cream or unsweetened half and half if I’m craving milk.
Low lactose milk varieties exist.
I have never in my life wanted a glass of milk, but since being on keto I sometimes drink a half cup of cream with a bit of almond milk, blended with ¼ tsp garam masala, a pinch of salt and a couple drops of stevia.
Most are gateway drugs for me... I'm better off just avoiding even the alternatives.
For soda, I drink flavored seltzer. Sometimes with a shot of Mio. Coffee creamer is light or heavy cream.
Now if I could just find an alternative to peanut butter... my last remaining vice.
Almond butter isn’t bad… but it definitely is NOT peanut butter 🫤
And it is 4x the cost!
Reasonable at Costco
2 T Pb fit has 6g which is better than regular peanut butter and no added sugar. You could mix it with cream or butter to up the fat without extra carbs. It's not perfect but sometimes even half a serving hits the spot.
I've been getting the Skippy No Sugar Added Chunky which has 6g carbs. It's cheap (2.49 to 2.99 for a jar). It just tastes too good...
How lucky to have all these alternatives available on the market. In my country, there aren’t many people doing keto and almost no alternatives available, so I have to make most things at home. I collected a good amount of recipes for tortillas and bread. My ice-cream recipe is more like frozen skyr with berries and a few dried fruits like pistachios. I’ve never attempted to bake chips, but I don’t crave them either. I gave up protein bars instead, I have skyr or a boiled egg, a lot of protein in both. I bake a lot more now, and most weeks I bake a cake. Our favorite is a super easy blueberry cheesecake.
Yup, same. In Germany I have to make everything myself. I found one bar that claims to be specifically keto, but I don't even trust that.
that's pretty admirable, I didn't even know many of these options existed so I'm extremely grateful. if you have a keto cake recipe you like, I'd love to hear it
A couple notes here:
Bread replacements that use "soluble corn fiber", "modified food starch", etc and have very high fiber count aren't necessarily keto. Responses vary, but in some cases (like me, unfortunately), they'll turn into starch instead.
Same deal with sugar alcohols that aren't erythritol. Maltitol has a very variable absorption rate, 5-90%, and the amount that's absorbed will absolutely turn into glucose. Name brands like the ones you've listed use maltitol -- you have to do a bit of digging to find erythritol, monk fruit, etc.
Some additions to your list
Lily's chocolate -- uses erythritol + monk fruit, variety of flavors. Quite good on everything but your wallet.
Almond flour cookies (like fatsnax) -- hard to find these days, but since it's using almond flour as a base it doesn't fall into the issues above.
Flavored sparkling water -- typically zero carb, often a decent dose of potassium as well (200-300mg). Widens drink options beyond soda and doesn't have their histamine issues.
Low-lactose milk such as lactaid.
Atkins brand sweets/drinks are old-school and use sucralose.
Also hard to source, but vegetable chips have way way less carbs than corn/potato ones. Granted, most of these will have rice flour or use high-carb vegetables as a base, so you have to really hunt around for good ones.
Popcorn salt is low in carbs, obviously a good sodium source, and makes food hyperpalatable. I make my own "junk food" sometimes with this + a non-alcohol-based spray-on oil.
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Your post was removed because it was considered to be a low effort post.
If you have nothing positive and helpful to add just keep scrolling.
Nice list, ignore the yelling you’ve gotten and I’m sure will continue to get. I eats ton of whole foods and also include these into my diet because it works well for me after 8+ years of nonstop keto. My health is great (mental and physical), blood work is fantastic, and I’ve maintained my weight with zero issues. Keto products don’t work for everyone, but in the end we should all do what works best for us individually. Sorry some people can’t just keep scrolling in order to simply just live and let live. But that’s Reddit! 😂
I personally have found that Hero bagels kinda slay the Sola ones in texture and flavor, if you find them anywhere I highly recommend trying them!! 🤘🏻
Thank you!! You'd think I was force feeding 100 zero carb tortillas to some people lmao.
I'll look for Hero and see how I like them!!
This is the answer OP… 👆🏼KCKO!
I just recently got a cheap breadmaker machine and started making this keto bread recipe. It is about 5 minutes of effort to literally throw all the ingredients into the machine and press go and a few hours later some of the best bread I've had in a long time! I also bought a bunch of paper bread bags and it freezes so well for grilled cheese or toast
https://youtu.be/OHJdHPKAMXg?si=w9LCvVLOiZO_aTI8
I fully leave off the monkfruit and the bread tastes just as amazing but if you want a closer to store bread then a bit of monkfruit helps.
Macros for entire Keto Yeast Bread:
you're amazing, THANK YOU! 🤠
I make a "bread" using a simple recipe I found a while ago:
- 2 cups almond flour
- 1 cup riced cauliflower
- 1/4 cup psyllium husks
- tsp of baking soda
- 5 eggs, beaten
Sometimes I'll add some vanilla extract, or Hershey's cocoa powder, cinnamon, or crushed nuts.
Bake for 30 minutes at 350.
Nice, thanks!
You had me at #12!!! 🤣
it's been my saving grace when work gets too crazy!!
My keto food alternative Master List:
- NO ALTERNATIVES xD
Keto is easy - fat, proteins, minerals and vitamins.
This is over complicated and mostly highly processed food - unnecessary and high in suspicious additives, preservatives and substitutes that may make your "keto" not sustainable if you run out of substitutes and who knows what are the side effects of all of those additives long term in high amount.
I have tried some of those in the past and results were mixed. I was eating more, because why not - "it is just a keto snack" that I do not need but here it is, just waiting for me to eat it xD. And after some I was feeling bad compared to "simple keto meals".
Keto is easy for you. What works for you, works for you. I'm happy for you. Not everything that works for you is going to work for everyone else.
Keto isn't as easy for those of us who have fraught relationships with food, for whatever reason. So if we need to rely on some "frankenfoods" to help us transition to a healthier way of eating, for us, then that's what we'll do.
The most important part of keto is learning WHATS in your food and HOW to eat healthy.
Replacing shit food with “keto” shit food means you’ll learn nothing and gain it all back and more when you cycle off.
Use keto as an opportunity to learn and change your diet towards a healthy one based on whole foods so you can maintain it if/when you cycle off.
You're acting like this is all they're eating, you can eat mostly whole foods and still enjoy a snack from time to time. There is nothing wrong with having some treats or tortillas on hand for when you need them. It can keep you on track and avoid cheating, might not work for you but works for lots of people. Your diet doesn't have to be 100% health foods to be healthy, you can still enjoy things here and there and be perfectly healthy.
Exactly. These are just replacements for when I want something specific, there's no reason to list out the regular meals I have because why would I beat the common sense dead horse lmao
Even non-keto diets have an 80-20 rule where consistency is more important than perfection.
That assumes you will cycle off -- having alternatives available prevents you from needing to. When I want to veer off from my normal diet and have a soda, it's always a zero-sugar one, out of pure habit -- and this persists even if I'm off the rails at the moment.
Not necessarily, though. Long-term keto gives you lifelong habits, like IF or a focus on protein that dramatically changes the impact of diet switches. Plus no one here is trying to live on keto snacks, compared to SAD where that can totally be the case.
Those zero sugar Reese’s cups are the best “fake” candy I’ve ever tried!
so good but so punishing if you eat too many 💀 they taste amazing though
Great list. I can’t eat too much of the Russell Stover candies. Makes me sick. Love the Mission tortillas for wraps.
Try choc zero brand. They make sugar free products from monk fruit. They have a really good orange marmalade I like to use in the morning on bread.
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Calling a simple wine "cancer juice" is straight up unhinged and I actually can't believe I just read it.
Your post was removed because it was considered to be a low effort post.
You say you dont want to be "That guy" but then went out of your way and tried really hard to be "That guy" in a pretty rude way.
If this list triggers you that much then this post wasnt meant for you. Just scroll on, this isnt a list of everything theyre eating, its a list of treats and substitutions that helped them along the way.
There is nothing wrong with enjoying some treats from time to time. There is no such thing as a perfect diet, everyone has to find what works for them and what makes this sustainable for them. Having a tortilla or a keto chocolate isnt gonna kill you.
This is not keto
are you going to elaborate or are you just gonna leave it at that?