Is It Possible For Vegans To Follow The Keto Diet?
The keto diet, which is short for the ketogenic diet, is a diet that means those following it eat a low-carb, high-fat diet. According to Healthline, the diet offers users many health benefits, including helping you to lose weight, by reducing carbohydrate intake and replacing it with fat by putting your body into a metabolic state called ketosis. When your body is in this state, that's when you begin to see the benefits of the keto diet.
As noted by Everyday Health, veganism involves eliminating any animal products, including meat, dairy, and eggs. These animal products are not only high in protein, but they also contain fat, making them perfect for consuming on the keto diet, but not if you're following a vegan diet. If you're vegan and want to follow the keto diet for weight loss or other health benefits, you may be wondering if it's possible to follow both the keto and vegan diets simultaneously.
What to eat on the vegan keto diet
As detailed by Mind Body Green, doing a vegan keto diet is not only possible, it's easy to be highly successful when combining these two methods of eating. The article advises success happens when you embrace low-starch vegetables like zucchini and cauliflower, low-sugar fruits like berries, plant-based fat sources such as avocados, coconut oil, and full-fat coconut milk, along with nuts and seeds.
Replacing meats and fats may seem easy to swap, but what about substituting eggs? Because of their versatility, high protein, and relatively low cost, eggs are a large part of the traditional keto diet, from breakfast scrambles to eating them hard-boiled as a snack. Per Ketogenic, there are numerous keto and vegan-friendly staples that you can use to replace eggs when you're on the keto diet. Some of those replacements include using aquafaba, or water from canned chickpeas, silken tofu, as well as flax and chia seeds. By making a few simple swaps, it is possible for vegans to follow a keto diet.