With the way the world has been structured in the past 20-50+ years, anything companies see as a “diet” as far as trends are capitalized upon.
That’s even at the expense of your health, future, skin, immune system, and money.
It’s no wonder so many people are tricked into thinking certain foods are keto-friendly, low-carb, and safe to eat when pursuing a ketogenic lifestyle.
Some of it is because products are labelled or promoted as “keto” or low carbohydrates, while others are just a result of us being naive and unrealistic with macros.
Let’s talk about it.
Non Keto Foods to avoid:
1. Organic Chocolate Hazelnut Spread | 90% Less Sugar
- 18g of carbs per tablespoon (with 2g sugar, and 5g of erythritol).
Notice how on the packaging it’s promoted as “90% less sugar” but in reality, it has over 18g of carbs in a serving? (2 tablespoons which are 35g).
Less than a handful of people will only eat 2 tablespoons of this hazelnut chocolate spread and be satisfied with it.
It’s chocolate we’re talking about. You’ll be digging it out in no time.
Even if you’re disciplined, all it takes is 1-2 tablespoons to threaten your low-carb lifestyle. And knock you out of fat-burning mode.
2. Jakeman “throat” sweets
The problem with this product is the way it’s promoted. Many sweets are considered throat sweets, the types that will get rid of your cold, soar throat, etc.
The issue with that is the amount of sugar in the packet, not just the sugar per sweet. Because again, how many people will “Only” eat 1 or 2 sweets and call it a day?
In fact, 1 or 2 is still around 3-5g per sweet.
If you have a soar throat or feel under the weather, try:
- Turmeric.
- Ginger.
- Lemon.
- Lime.
- Strawberries.
- Raspberries.
Or any natural low-carb food with zinc, Vitamin D, Vitamin C, and other beneficial nutrients.
3. SlimFast Balanced Meal Shake
You have to be careful with a lot of food. On Amazon, the nutrition is missing completely. They “only” show you the so-called “low sugar” hype along with protein, but no mention of carbs or anything relevant.
I had to go straight to the website for Slimfast to see the actual facts.
Per serving, it’s 32g of carbohydrates. This is despite the drinks being promoted as “low sugar”.
4. SlimFast Original Meal Replacement Powder, Rich Chocolate Royale
1 scoop of this chocolate keto protein powder is 18g of carbohydrates, Being chocolate, it’s easy to have 2 scoops because “one is just not enough”.
Not only is the fibre content not enough to make it keto-friendly, but the first ingredient in this product is sugar.
The first few ingredients of any product are the largest portions, so it speaks for itself.
5. Coconut Sugar
Any type of sugar with the name “sugar” in it is all the same. Coconut sugar sounds healthy because of the fact it comes from coconut supposedly. But it’s not true.
If it’s sugar it’s gonna spike insulin, cause problems, create cravings, and you’ll have too much for it to matter on a low carbohydrate diet.
6. Banana
Bananas are some of the most promoted fruits around. The famous saying of Bananas being rich in potassium (or however the saying goes) is a common one, but disingenuous in the context of sugar.
Bananas are one of the highest-sugar fruits there is, and it’s easy to have more than one Banana.
Too difficult and impractical for a keto lifestyle.
7. Mission Guerrero Zero Carb 0g Net Carbs – Keto Certified
This looks legit at first glance, and it’s hard to fault it if you only look at what it sells you. Even when you look at the back it seems genuine.
Truth is the fibre content might “cancel” out the carbohydrates and sugar, but the fact the first ingredient is modified wheat starch, and there are questionable vegetable oils inside of it, “keto” is the least of what it is.
The promotion of “zero” carbs is just a hook to reel you in. It only works if you’re misinformed and miseducated on what ingredients to watch out for.
8. Keto Diet Pills
This is one of the craziest products I’ve come across. Any form of pills to achieve the lifestyle of the diet you’re pursuing is not just laziness, it’s insanity.
Most of this is synthetic and not natural and isn’t a practical way to achieve ketosis without the synthetics your body doesn’t need.
9. Keto Extreme Fat Burner Supplements
Same for this product as the last. This Keto extreme fat burner supplement is like buying supplements to fill yourself with carbs, sugar, or any nutrient, or mineral you can think of.
If it doesn’t come from food in this case it’s no good. True ketosis is much easier to achieve with real food like meat, dairy, and so on.
10. Honey (Raw, Organic, etc)
I was naive when starting the keto diet. I thought I could “manage” my sweet tooth by just having a little bit of raw honey, convincing myself that raw honey is better for the body than processed.
The reality is if you’re prone to acne, heart issues, insulin problems, etc, this is not for you. Plus it’s a terrible idea if you’re serious about keto.
11. Cane Sugar
Like I said earlier, any type of sugar regardless of how healthy it sounds or what words are used to make it compelling is still sugar at the end of the day.
You’re gonna have the same results, or lack of, regardless of the type of sugar, And you’ll always fail to lose weight, maintain the lifestyle, or gain the benefits keto is known for giving you.
12. Skimmed Milk
Taking out the fat from milk is like taking out the protein from soy, the Vitamin D from cheese, the magnesium from dark chocolate, the vitamin C from fruits, or the potassium from vegetables.
They never do that because it would be a mass disaster for our health, But it’s popular to demonize fat which is why skimmed milk exists (you lose the benefits by reducing the natural fat).
It’s essentially a non-keto food once the fat is gone. The only reason to have skimmed milk is if you can’t digest the whole-fat milk.
13. Low-fat butter
Here in the UK, you have brands like Flora that promote “Low fat” products among many others. But removing fat, the most essential thing from dairy aside from protein is like cutting off your left leg.
You don’t gain anything, you just lose too many benefits by doing so.
14. Sally Williams Dark Chocolate Nougat Bar 50 g
10g of carbs per serving, and 8g of sugar. The box is only 50g. You know what that means? It means you’ll eat the whole packet the moment you bite even a little bit of it.
Many companies pull this disingenuous trick of making it seem like the serving is low in sugar, knowing damn well the serving size is much smaller than what most will consume when eating it.
15. Low fat Yogurt
Same story all over again. Lowering the fat content of dairy is cutting the left arm and left leg of the dairy. It only makes the product worse and no benefits are gained from it.
It’s a marketing ploy and people still fall for it (even those who don’t pursue keto).
16. Low-fat cheese
A metaphor for low-fat cheese would be losing more weight than necessary to the point of anorexia. At that point, you lose out.
It’s no longer healthy (or keto-friendly food). That’s what low-fat cheese is.
17. Oranges
One of the most popular fruits alongside bananas. Praised for its vitamin C content. But did you know Kiwi fruits are even better than oranges?
They’re mildly acceptable for keto every now and then as well.
Even Avocado is just as good, and that’s a definite keto food. Orange is no good and is non-keto without a doubt.
18. Sweetcorn
Sweetcorn was one of my favourite vegetables growing up, and even years later. No surprise since it’s obviously sweet.
That also means it has too many carbs and sugar compared to other vegetables. It’s too easy to go overboard with sweetcorn and it’s high in carbs even in small amounts.
Anywhere from 8g-15g of carbs/sugar per 100g.
19. Sugar-free biscuits
20. ACHIEVE | Keto Chocolate Bars 16 x 35g – Salted Peanut Vegan
Too easy to have 2 or 4 of this per day. Each one has 8.4g of carbs, 2.3g are sugar alcohol, 7.7g is fibre. But the fibre isn’t the “real” fibre you’ll find in veg or fruits.
Also, the ingredients list syrup among other things. A telltale sign of not being keto-friendly at all.
21. BRAVE Crunchy Chickpeas – Delicious Healthy Snacks Dark Chocolate
You have 6 per pack, and this is dark chocolate. The sugar content which they conveniently don’t list on the front is 47g per pack.
18g is sugar. So the fibre doesn’t eliminate it. More importantly, it’s not something you’ll “only” eat 1 or 2 of then put to the side. No, you’ll eat all 6 of these in one sitting.
This is how they get away with it. Very few people will eat 1 or two pieces of chocolate if there are 6 in the entire pack, making it unhealthy regardless of whether you’re pursuing keto or not.
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In the end, there are too many foods to list just like the ones mentioned in this post.
There are universal products like Cane Sugar which should be avoided on a keto diet no matter what. And there are specific products like Slimfast which are no good.
Pay extra attention to the back and the ingredients or you’ll get caught out unknowingly, and your progress will suffer without you knowing why.