Healthy and Delicious Eating with a Vegetarian Keto Diet

As you may already know, a ketogenic diet is the optimal diet for those who want to lose excess weight responsibly without constantly feeling hungry, as is often the case with most other diets. In fact, during a ketogenic diet, you consume very few carbohydrates, which means your body primarily derives its energy from fats. But how can you do that if you’re a vegetarian or vegan?

What Makes Vegetarian Keto Eating Challenging?

Initially, a vegetarian keto diet can be challenging. It takes some getting used to, especially since many staple vegetarian foods are high in carbohydrates. Vegetarians often rely on foods like beans, lentils, and whole grains for their protein, but these foods also contain a significant amount of carbohydrates. Additionally, vegetarians need to be cautious about potentially missing out on essential nutrients such as vitamin B12 and D, iron, zinc, calcium, omega-3 fatty acids, and even protein. Following a vegetarian keto diet can make it even trickier, as it eliminates sources of B12 like cereal, legumes, and whole grains, making it harder to obtain these essential nutrients.

Keto in a Vegetarian or Vegan Diet

Keto can fit within most vegetarian diets. However, following a vegan keto diet is more challenging. Complete proteins contain all nine essential amino acids. Animal proteins provide all of these essential amino acids in the quantities our bodies need. Most plant sources lack one or more of these amino acids. Those who choose not to consume animal products usually rely on a combination of grains, legumes, and seeds to meet their essential amino acid needs, but these foods don’t fit within a keto diet, which limits daily carbohydrate intake to a maximum of 30 grams net carbs.

Tips for Following a Healthy Vegetarian Keto Diet

How can you follow a healthy vegetarian keto diet without missing out on essential nutrients?

• Reduce Carbohydrates: To achieve and maintain ketosis, it’s best to limit your net carbohydrate intake to 20-30 grams per day. This means avoiding popular vegetarian protein sources like quinoa, buckwheat, and legumes, as these foods have too many carbohydrates to allow for ketosis. Milk, starchy vegetables, and most fruits should also be avoided.
• Add High-Quality Proteins to Your Meals: Combining low-carb plant-based proteins like nuts and seeds with animal protein sources like dairy and eggs improves the protein quality of a vegetarian keto diet. Some of the best vegetarian protein sources for keto include eggs, Greek yogurt, hemp seeds, cottage cheese, cheese, unsweetened liquid heavy cream, tofu, tempeh, and edamame beans.
• Consume Sufficient Low-Carb Vegetables: Many delicious keto vegetables provide a good dose of fiber and help you meet your daily requirements for micronutrients. Examples include spinach, zucchini, avocados, Brussels sprouts, and cauliflower (click here for a comprehensive list of low-carb vegetables).
• Use Healthy Oils in Cooking and Salad Dressings: Natural fats improve the texture of your food and help you feel satiated. They are also necessary for the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K. In a keto diet, it’s important to choose healthy, natural fats and spices, such as butter, ghee, coconut oil, olive oil, and avocado oil.

Vegan Keto Diet

As a vegan, you consume only plant-based foods such as vegetables, fruits, and grains, avoiding all animal products like meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy. To achieve ketosis as a vegan, you can rely on high-fat plant-based foods like coconut oil, avocados, seeds, nuts, and nut butters. When following a vegan keto diet, you’ll need to significantly reduce carbohydrate intake and replace them with healthy fats and vegan protein sources. What foods work well in a vegan keto diet?

• Coconut Products: Full-fat coconut milk, coconut cream, fresh coconut pieces, and unsweetened dried coconut.
• Oils: Olive oil, nut oils, coconut oil, and avocado oil.
• Nuts and Seeds: Almonds, Brazil nuts, walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts, macadamia nuts, hemp seeds, chia seeds, sunflower seeds, and pumpkin seeds.
• Nut and Seed Butters: You can easily make a paste (similar to peanut butter) from almost any nuts or seeds. Simply place your choice of nuts or seeds in a blender and grind them into a paste.
• Non-Starchy Vegetables Such As: Leafy greens, Brussels sprouts, zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower, bell peppers, and mushrooms (click here for extensive lists of low-carb vegetables).
• Vegan Protein Sources: Tofu, tempeh, seitan.
• Avocados: Whole avocados, guacamole, chia puddings.
• Berries: Blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, and cranberries. You can eat these in moderation.
• Spices/Seasonings: Fresh herbs, lemon juice, salt, pepper, spices.

While the keto diet excludes many food groups that vegans typically rely on, a vegan keto diet can still be followed with careful planning.

Vegetarian Keto Recipes

Xandra’s Keto Kitchen offers a wide variety of vegetarian and vegan keto recipes and recipe ideas that allow you to enjoy a keto lifestyle. You can find various tasty vegetarian keto recipes on our website. Many recipes from Xandra’s Keto Kitchen cookbooks can easily be adapted to be vegetarian or vegan. Currently, we are working on a new cookbook, a vegetarian special. This cookbook will focus on vegan keto recipes, supplemented with vegetarian keto recipes. Interested in learning more about the keto cookbooks available at Xandra’s Keto Kitchen and the recipes they contain? Check out our complete cookbook selection in the online store.