So you want to start eating the Lo-Carb/Hi-Fat way? First things first – remove temptation and clean out your Kitchen Pantry.
This is our Kitchen Pantry guide, we actually only did all this recently.
Kitchen Pantry Guide
Kitchen Pantry
What we found was that a lot of the stuff we had to throw out was out of date as we had already been six months plus on a ketogenic diet. We put flour and starches into our compost as the worms can live on them for a while and turn it into good soil to grow our zucchinis and (hopefully) celeriac.
Snacks
Let’s start with Snacks. Following is a list of the easy snack items to ditch from your Kitchen Pantry and some suggestions for replacing them.
| High Carbohydrate | Easy Lo-Carb Alternative |
|---|---|
| Potato Chips |
|
| Biscuits/Cookies | Low carb bars from Atkins, Aussie Bodies etc. There are some no sugar added biscuits and cookies out there as well. |
| Chocolate | No sugar added chocolate (sweetened with Stevia or Splenda etc.) or make your own – we will post a recipe soon. |
| Breakfast Cereals | Low carb bars from Atkins, Aussie Bodies etc. or make your own. We are working on a mix and will post details soon. |
| Muesli/Granola Bars | Muesli Bars Low carb bars from Atkins (Day-break), Aussie Bodies etc. |
| Cracker & Crisp breads | If you feel like a cracker for your cheese then Microwaved Flaxseed Crackers is a recipe we use (Modified from one on the Atkins site) that is REALLY quick and easy. Early in the change to ketosis I would not eat these, but when you are increasing your carb count then Cruskits Orginal are not too bad.
 Cruskit Original There are also low carb ones out there like Andre’s Carbo Save Crackerbread and Fine Fettle Flats |
| Anything Low Fat | Full Fat version! |
Package Meal Kits
Generally these had heaps of carbs. Taco’s, nachos, wraps etc. all use high carb items to make the meal. We found the Empower low carb wraps and superfoods barley max wraps are low in carbs and can be used for burritos and even cut up, and deep fried to make chips for nachos. As for Tacos’ well Richards Cheese Taco (made from cheese) are totally excellent.
Ingredients
Next let’s ditch the basic baking and cooking items that are high carb and can be replaced in most instances.
| High Carbohydrate | Easy Lo-Carb Alternative |
|---|---|
| Wheat based flours | Coconut flour – generally you don’t use nearly as much of this when substituting so don’t buy too much at the start.Also Vital Wheat Gluten powder is a good one to get, although no good for our Paleo cousins. |
| Rice | You can make a decent rice substitute by chopping up Cauliflower in a food processor, but we also like Konjac based rice substitutes.
 Kojac rice substitute
|
| Sugars (brown, caster, icing – all of them) | Splenda, Stevia, Nativa or erythritol all of which have a version that can be used for cooking and baking. Despite negative press about sugar substitutes all of these are plant based and not “laboratory concoctions”[ Xylitol made from the bark of hardwood trees is also available however, it is highly dangerous to dogs and as we have two fur-babies, we are trying to steer clear of this group of sweeteners. ] |
| Corn flour/starch | Guar Gum or Xanthan gum, use carefully they work very differently to corn flour. You need to gently sprinkle the powder thinly while whisking vigorously. |
| Other starches and flours (potato flour, rice flour etc) |
Basically these are nut and seed flours or meals. |
| Semolina & Polenta | Try Almond Meal polenta (or your favourite nut meal) |
| Pasta | There are low carb pastas out there, but it can be hit and miss. Try the Konjac noodles for Asian style dishes and Atkins and Ciao proto pasta. But in some of our recipes we use zucchini and other veggies instead of pasta. |
| Spreads | Ditch anything with added sugar. For peanut butter there are a few varieties that do not have sugar added, but there is still a few carbs, so keep an eye out.Vegemite is about 20% carbs, but as you only use small amount should be ok. |
| Sauces | Check the carbs, my recommendation is that anything where sugar is in the top 4 ingredients – ditch. Or if the carb count is greater than 10gms per serving (and use your way of serving not their recommendation) then ditch as by the time you add your veggies that count goes up. |
| Cans/Tins | Look at the carb counts, some makes use sugar as a preservative – we have found some cans of tomatoes as low as 3.1% carbs and others nearly 10%. So check them and ditch any that would have more than 20 carbs (or less depending on your tolerance) for a single serving in your meals. Add these items;
|
| Anything Low Fat | Full fat version ! |
What to keep
Kitchen Pantry Spices
| KEEP | BECAUSE: |
|---|---|
| Oils |
|
| Vinegars | Keep an eye out for high carb counts and extra added sugar and use sparingly. Balsamic usually has a greater content of carbohydrates due to its residual sugars, so keep an eye on the amounts you use. |
| Herbs and Spices | Herbs and Spices are brilliant flavour additives to your meats and vegetable dishes.As usual just check, especially blends, that there is no sugar added to the dried spices or herbs. |
| Soy Sauce | These have some carbs so keep that eye out, but they are great flavour infusers. |
| Low carb goods | Check everything before throwing out and my quick rule is that if sugar (or High Fructose Corn Syrup, glucose,fructose, rapadura, or any other name for Sugar) is in the top 4 of the ingredients or the carb count is more than 10gms per serving (based on your serving size not their recommendation) then ditch. |
Suggestions to buy
| Buy | BECAUSE: |
|---|---|
| Oil based Essences | Add flavour without the carbs. We have maple flavour to add to bacon and Richards to die for Maple Bacon Ice Cream, I use apple flavour my cooked cabbage which gives the meal the tart apple flavour you want but keeps the carb count down. |
| Other Flavours | We use a smoke flavouring, which usually comes from exposing barley flour to Hickory smoke, so it may contain carbs from the barley, but we use it in extremely small amounts. |
| Proteins |
You may not need all of these but they are good for adding to low carb recipes. |
| Psyllium husk | Good to get fibre into your diet especially in the early days when your body is getting used to the new diet. Be careful in drinks as it will thicken even when cold and can get stodgy if not consumed immediately. |
| Dried berries | Only use a small amount as in their dried state have a higher concentrate of carbs, but it allows you to keep some on hand. We find the best ones are blueberries. |
| Unprocessed bran | This can be used in bread, muffin and granola recipes to give a familiar flavour and lots of fibre |
You might not need all the items listed, but I would buy the most appealing items from categories that you currently eat or use first. Also we found that the reliance on the bars and pre-packaged low carb items is reducing all the time as we spend time testing recipes and trying to replace packaged items with homemade foods.
Jules
You two are amazing
Thanks Mish, it’s all hard work and bacon 🙂
Great post! I love the detail!
Thanks – you can blame Julie. Detail is her department.
What about dry or fresh beans?
Can I make bean soup with smoke bacon?
What about Japanese fermented beans – Natto?
What about Edamame?
Are they good or bad for this kind of diet?
I eat a little Edamame like I might eat half a dozen with a beef meal. Legumes have starches. BUt in small doses they are OK.
Thanks,
Another question.
Here in US our bacon has half meet half fat. Meat contains proteins and fat -> fats.
How do I manage only 30% fat in my diet even when bacon has 50% to 50% meat to fat?
Bacon is 40% protein and 35% fat
USDA Nutrient Database
I guess I confused you with my question.
How do I maintain 70% of fat and only 30% of protein in my diet when even in bacon there are more protein than fat?
According keto calculator I can have only 80 grams of protein.
Am I missing something?
There are other sources of fat. Such as cream, butter and cheese. So for example a meal may include a few rashers of bacon, with scrambled eggs (eggs and cream) cooked in the bacon fat, sprinkled with some cheese, and a little butter.