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by tripzilch 3550 days ago
When I tried keto a few years back (an interesting experience, to say the least), and I eliminated almost all carbs from my diet, estimated the calories that are left, I found I needed to eat a LOT more fat to reach a sensible daily amount of calories. Like heaping a few big tablespoons of mayo on a bowl of broccoli lots (being Dutch, cue the Pulp Fiction references :) ). Maybe it's just that I've never been a very big eater, but yeah I found it a bit of a struggle to keep up. So adding some butter and coconut fat to the coffee helps. Plus fat lasts longer, it doesn't quite spike like sugars do, so getting a whole lot of it in the morning is a great way to start the day.

I kinda want to try and start again, it definitely had some benefits, as long as I managed to get enough calories and vegetables/nutrients (sorry I'm one of those persons that needs to take care they eat enough).

The big problem, however, is that in the mean time I've greatly reduced the amount of animal products from my diet--for environmental and ethical reasons, not health. And I'm not really sure how to do both.

I would need to spend a lot of money on almonds and other foods that may not seem that expensive until you need to consume them in bulk to replace the cheap, cheap carbs :) Being nearly-vegetarian is very cheap.

And even though I could probably hack the costs (or figure out something clever to do so), I'm not at all sure if it's even possible to live on a healthy keto diet while keeping my environmental impact footprint to a reasonable size that I can consider myself a responsible inhabitant of this planet. I don't think I can bring myself to eat very large amounts of meat again, even if they're organic certifiably happy cows. Tempeh has slightly more proteins anyway :p (also tastier than tofu, which is not a very high bar, I know)

2 comments

If you are not opposed to eating sea food, there are many fish that are good on keto. Mackerels, Sardines, Anchovies, and Salmon come to mind, plus they have a high ratio of omega 3 vs omega 6 and 9. I eat lots of Avacado and use a lot of olive oil you can cook vegetables in. You honestly want to go light on the nuts, because even many of the fatty ones still have quite a few carbs, and the omega fat ratio is not great. Also flax is a big deal. I get what you are saying though; I think it would be difficult to be vegetarian on this diet, though ironically I probably eat less meat than I did before keto.
I'm on a similar boat. Vegan for +10 years, I fast one day a week and aim to keep carbs under 20 grams the day after, I feel my great during those 2 days. I would like to make the switch into full vegan keto, but I've yet to find a plan that I feel would cover my nutritional bases and that I could maintain on a low-budget.

Let me know if you make any headway! /r/veganketo helps.

p.s. I recently found that dumpster diving asian supermarkets I can get infinite supply of still-fresh packaged tofu, that has sure been helping!