Fruits aren’t a hard rule when it comes to the ketogenic diet lifestyle.
It all depends on the:
- Type of fruit.
- What fruit it is.
- Where it’s sourced.
And how much of that fruit you’re eating for it to be keto-friendly or not.
But even when it’s still worth avoiding, there are ways to make fruits more keto-friendly than they otherwise would have been.
Let’s talk about that.
Making fruits more keto friendly:
1. Overdosing on fatty cream
https://www.ourpaleolife.com/berries-and-cream/
Overdosing on fatty cream is exactly what it sounds like. You take the fruit you’re eating, and you pour a lot of fatty cream over it to lessen the blow of sugar or carbs.
That’s what fat does.
You can’t do this with low-fat cream because you defeat the purpose of slowing down blood sugar spikes, or in other words, potentially knocking yourself out of ketosis.
Of course, not all fruits do this, and not everyone reacts the same way, but the more sugary the fruit, the more cream you’ll need (dairy or non-dairy).
2. Sticking only to berries
Berries are the tried and true battle-tested way of eating fruits while still being in ketosis and pursuing a ketogenic lifestyle in the first place.
Take strawberries. They have around 6g of sugar per 100g—or 7g per serving. Paired with fat is a good choice (cream).
Raspberries have around 4g of sugar per 100g serving.
Blackberries have over 5g of sugar per 100g serving.
Blueberries are around 9g per 100g serving, making it a little higher.
These are all feasible but even better with cream to make them more keto-friendly.
3. Knowing your portion sizes
This is a thing that trips people up in general when it comes to food. Supermarkets are bad at giving you accurate portion sizes.
Sometimes they’re outright misleading, like how a cereal box will say 30g is a serving (it’s not), or how a 300g pack of fruit will use 100g servings which can be unhelpful if you don’t know how that looks.
A handful of blueberries is a serving. Same for strawberries (which are larger, so less of them).
You have to know your portion sizes on any diet, not just keto, but more so if you want to be in ketosis and make use of the health benefits it can give you.
4. Knowing your vices
I know my vices. I’m bad with sugar. Just because I don’t eat sugar like that anymore doesn’t mean I can now eat sugary fruits without any cravings.
“Sweet tooth” is something I joked about, but it’s a real vice for me, so I only eat strawberries on occasion, if that.
Raspberries are better since they’re sour tasting, but only if organic (regular gives me a stomach ache).
Blueberries I eat even more rarely because they’re sweeter, along with Kiwi or mangoes.
What are your vices?
Work around that when trying to make fruits more keto-friendly, or deciding if eating fruits is even worth it.
5. Choosing NOT to blend your fruits
Smoothies are bragged about for their supposed health benefits and the magic they have in a bottle.
The problem is, when you blend fruits, the fibre isn’t as effective as it once was in its original state. It’s not worse than buying it from a supermarket, but not as good as eating the real fruit.
The sugar also hits your bloodstream faster with blended fruits (it’s liquid).
Raspberries are fine, or berries every now and then, but stuff like mangoes, maybe watermelons, oranges, kiwi, etc, can be a problem for keto.
Blended or otherwise.
6. Eating certain fruits only on occasion
This is a fallback option for those who still want to eat fruits but may have a vice, or they may have skin issues, or whatever it might be that eating certain fruits could trigger.
If you eat mangoes, don’t make it a habit. A few times a year seems crazy, but not if it helps your health (or skin health).
Same with Kiwi, watermelons (depending on how many), and other fruits that aren’t berries.
Related: Fruits For Hidradenitis Suppurativa: The TRUTH You Should Know
7. Eating your fruits during a fatty keto meal
The last option to make fruits more keto-friendly is to eat those fruits during a fatty keto meal or after a fatty meal.
When you eat food in one meal, you spike your insulin less, and your blood sugars than you would if you ate those things spread out throughout the day.
For someone like me, that’s an issue because I have Hidradenitis Suppurativa. So eating berries, let’s say, right after eating fatty bacon or salmon would be a better choice.
Even if it was Kiwi or, worse, one Mango after a fatty meal, the effects it would have had in isolation are lessened.
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Ultimately, making fruits more keto-friendly comes down to the timing of eating them, how you eat them, what you eat them with, and knowing yourself.
This will work for some but not everyone, so the final decision is for you to decide if you feel it can work for your individual case.
Next:
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