Keto ingredients that are not quite healthy
Keto ingredients that usually replace some typical ingredients in traditional and modern cooking represent a great trap for beginners! You think you will be able to make everything as originally and then you hit the wall of unhealthy consequences. Some of these consequences for low-carbers or Ketonians were tragic! The worst of all sayings that were born from the world of Ketogenic dieting goes something like this: If it fits my macros, then I can eat it!
That would be maybe acceptable once in a while, but this way of thinking leads to the dark corridors of industrial food. When you think about it, it’s all for the purpose of pleasure! Now, we are not against pleasurable and comforting food here on Greek Goes Keto. However, we give our best to publish recipes with natural, healthy ingredients that have been used for thousands of years by people in different cultures and continents. Keto ingredients can follow the food sourcing wisdom from our ancestors! If something is in human nutrition for millennia, and we learned it doesn’t raise blood glucose as much as other ingredients, then it’s a Keto Ingredient. In fact, it’s a Keto Mediterranean ingredient because we think our KMD is the healthiest approach to living.
Modern humans and cheating with industrial additives
We must point a finger towards developed western countries where people started using all sorts of over-processed industrial additives to thicken and bind their Keto baking goods the way gluten does in standard recipes. Then there are the food-alike products made of cellulose (that’s paper or sawdust), there are those sweeteners that went through more process to get created that you could even think! How can this help you to heal with Keto? No way you’ll get healthier with imitation of your unhealthy way of living right before you decided to change something.
If an ingredient is made in a laboratory, it rarely comes with no side effects! Opt for oldfashioned food production until we as civilisation improve laboratory food production a bit more!
For now, industrially processed ingredients are not a healthy option for anyone!
It’s easy to fall into this trap. Hey, I can still make loads of cookies, pancakes and fry some roots to imitate crisps, chips or french fries! This is the moment of downfall! The moment of the plateau zone and frustration with an unsuccessful Ketogenic diet! But over the years, we have published so many attractive and tasty recipes with healthy Keto ingredients! Many of them went through the process of ketonisation of traditional Mediterranean recipes and turned out fascinating even though we don’t use industrial additives… Not even baking powder!
A small guide through the dark zone of unhealthy Keto ingredients
We will create a mini list of the most harmful and widely used ingredients used in so many Keto recipes online! People use them daily and constantly and we believe that their negative side is not well-presented in the universe of Keto blogging. We don’t want to be just another website with Keto recipes, we want to give you info and guidance that helped us and so many Ketonians who decided to try our clean Keto Mediterranean approach! Let’s start with the ugliest and most common Keto ingredients…
Unhealthy Keto ingredient #1 – Xanthan gum
As kids, we used to eat all sort of things just to taste them. Glue is one of the most common things children usually taste and then get in trouble. But it seems that as adults we continue to do this! Xanthan gum has been linked to respiratory and digestive problems and there’s a strict prohibition in dosage. This industrial turbo-processed laboratory product is created when sugar is fermented. The type of bacteria called Xanthomonas campestris leaves its residue that forms a glue-like substance. This substance is then made solid by adding alcohol. finally, it’s being dried at a high temperature and turned into a powder. This laboratory-made fibre is not actually digestible. Instead, it absorbs water and turns into a gel-like substance in your digestive system, which slows digestion, totally messes up your positive gut microflora. Yes, those guys that help build your immune system. In many recorded cases, the children and even adults developed necrotising enterocolitis after consuming xanthan gum too often in large quantities. This is a life-threatening disease that causes the intestines to become inflamed, damaged and start to die.
OUR VERDICT: TO THE GUILLOTINE WITH IT!
Unhealthy Keto ingredient #2 – Fibre-based sweeteners
Wanna face more bloating, pain, upset stomach, indigestion and irritation – eat more fibre! And then when you use it as a sweetener for anything you prepare in your Keto kitchen, the dark forces take over! Dietary fibres used as sweeteners are inulin, fructooligosaccharides, and isomaltooligosaccharides. Do they sound Keto to you? Inulin is a mixture of short and long chains of fructose molecules. Yes, the very same fructose that you are trying to avoid! It’s usually extracted from artichoke, chicory root, and agave. Fructooligosaccharides are linear chains of fructose molecules. They are present in syrup, yacon powder, and might be produced from inulin. Isomaltooligosaccharides are short chains of glucose molecules produced from tapioca starch. So you want starch and fructose derived sweeteners? Allulose and all other syrup alike sweeteners that are extremely popular should never find their place in a pantry of a health-concerned Ketonian!
The potential side effects of using fibre-based sweeteners include:
- cramps
- nausea
- bloating
- gas
- diarrhoea
OUR VERDICT: EXPELLED TO THE DIRTY KETO WORLD
Unhealthy Keto ingredient #3 – Carrageenan
This is found in many so-called Keto-friendly ingredients. In particular, the food industry loves to add it to heavy cream and whipping cream! But the thing about this seaweed extracted ingredient is that there is evidence it can messes up your digestive system to the levels you don’t even want to imagine! It’s a linear sulphated polysaccharide and as the chemical name says – it’s a carbohydrate! Scientists have presented evidence that carrageenan acts as an inflammatory and toxic ingredient. It especially attacks the digestive tract! These scientists claim that it may be responsible for colitis, IBS, rheumatoid arthritis, and even colon cancer. And guess what is carrageenan usually replacing in the food industry? The good old animal-derived gelatine! As a Ketonian, you should rather stock up on grass-fed beef gelatine and stay away from industrial products containing artificially extracted carrageenan!
OUR VERDICT: THROW IT BACK TO THE SEA
Unhealthy Keto ingredient #4 – Bamboo fibre, konjac and other indigestible anti-nutrition products
If you are a panda, then please ignore this paragraph. However, if you are human, pay close attention: All these fibres and literally anti-nourishing ingredients will cause digestive problems such as:
- bloating
- diarrhoea or loose stools
- abdominal pain
- gas
- nausea
Konjac products may also expand in your oesophagus or bowel and cause an obstruction. There were numerous cases that reported intestine blockage and gastric upset due to consumption of konjac noodles and fake rice made of it. Instead of these weird and non-human foods, just think about our Zero-carb egg noodles (tagliatelle). They are not only Keto but Carnivore friendly too!
Be clever, the food industry cannot offer you anything better than you can make at home from well-known and safe ingredients such as eggs and butter! On the other side, eating bamboo fibre can cause potential toxin development in your digestive system. Just like cassava, bamboo shoots contain cyanogenic glycosides named taxiphyllin, a naturally occurring toxin that can poison those who consume it.
OUR VERDICT: ON THE STAKE WITH IT!
There are so many more unhealthy Keto ingredients out there…
We just wanted to point out these 4 most common suspicious Keto ingredients. Naturally, you will find so many more industrial, laboratory-made and carefully hidden toxic ingredients where you least expect them. Think about microcrystalline cellulose and other fillers and bulking agents. You will find them everywhere! For this reason, we are inviting you to turn to natural ingredients that went under minimal or no industrial process before you brought them home.
If you place more meat, seafood, fish, goat and sheep dairy, eggs, scallops etc… on your plate, everything else will be just the details and garnish! But let those details be organic, natural and possibly have them grown and produced in your area! Stay tuned for more articles and overview on the contemporary Keto diet and how it can sometimes be unhealthier than your food industry wants you to think! Remember, we just want to share the healthiest approach to living, with a Mediterranean twist! We call it the Keto Mediterranean diet, but it’s actually a lifestyle!
I really like this article, it’s humorous and informative, especially because at Hungary, they sell inulin made of chicory as a prebiotic dietary supplement. Noodles made of conjac are advertised as keto friendly, and the same goes for bamboo fibre, konjac flour, flaxseed flour, psyllium husk flour (and pea protein powder), these things are recommended for people whose diets lack fibre. I find this absolutely hilarious (and cursed), because I once made baguette out of a recipe that contained: coconut flour, flaxseed flour, psyllium husk flour, egg whites, bamboo fibre and sesame seed sprinkled on the top, and let me tell you, it wiped out all the good gut bacteria and I suffered for a whole week. I needed to take probiotics for another week. The article doesn’t mention oat fiber/protein and wheat protein, they’re absolutely not keto, they contain gluten, yet many keto recipe blogs use this in baked goods to have the same effect gluten has in non keto baked goods. My other favourite non keto ingredient is yeast, as it gets hailed as keto because the yeast eats the sugar upon being activated. I think most people who use these ingredients regularly want the keto diet benefit but they absolutely don’t want to change their diet and lifestyle.
Ohh, Amanda, your comment is so well written, and we couldn’t thank you enough for posting this! Yes, that’s exactly the problem with modern Ketonians, but we are here to fix things a bit for all of us 😉
What is the problem with allulose specifically? I have been using it for over a year as my main sugar substitute for baking and in my coffee an noticed no adverse symptoms from it – no gas, no bloating, no nausea, my skin looks much better, and it makes better caramel than sucrose. When it comes to the consequences of using allulose vs. sucrose, I think the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. Your thoughts?