Dr. Eric Westman here, with my top 10 keto foods. My top 10 might not be yours. Choose foods that you love. When I mention a type of food, think of many different varieties, how you would like to make it, and whether you like it or not.
Eggs
At the top of my list is eggs. I think eggs are the perfect food. You can make an entire chicken out of eggs. Eggs can be made in different styles like hard-boiled, soft-boiled, scrambled, over-easy, or as egg bites.
Meat
Choose the meat that you like. In fact, it could be top sirloin, it could be ribeye, ground beef, pork, lamb, veal, sausage, or even Spam. If you live in Hawaii or South Korea, you’re probably thinking about having Spam right now. It could be in a can, it’s okay. These meats get a bad rap because of very weak observational science. It’s called nutritional epidemiology. There’s a very small association with some diseases, and it really is not solid enough for me to worry about it. Don’t worry about red meat consumption, choose the meat that you like.
Poultry
There’s a lot of chicken that’s consumed in North Carolina. It could be turkey, it could be duck, it could be any kind of poultry. We want to be careful about breading on the chicken, for example. If you’re having chicken, it should be grilled or well-coated with something other than breading. A lot of people use crushed pork rinds as breading for chicken. It could be rotisserie chicken, prepared for you already. Again, choose what you like under the conditions that you want. Someone came to me recently saying, “I wasn’t successful because I didn’t meal prep.” I said, “What do you mean? You don’t need to meal prep.” Some people do choose to do that, others don’t, but that’s not a requirement for a keto diet. I’m not sure where that came from.
Fish and seafood
Years ago, many people thought Atkins was all about bacon. When I was at a meeting, a doctor came to me and said, “I’m doing the salmon Atkins diet.” I asked, “What’s that?” He reminded me that Dr. Atkins didn’t require you to eat bacon. That was a popular media representation of that approach. What Dr. Atkins taught and what we’re teaching is to just keep the carbs really low. Eating fish would be fine, of course, lightly breaded or not breaded at all. But fish and seafood are one of the top keto foods – the type of fish and seafood that you like.
Non-starchy vegetables
Pick non-starchy vegetables that you like. These count as the next three top keto foods. The ABCs include asparagus, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, celery, and cucumbers. You can choose any of those that you like. Celery is useful for the crunch if you’re missing something crunchy. Cauliflower is useful for making mashed cauliflower or “cauliflower rice”.
Greens
We think you should have some greens. It doesn’t matter if it’s collard greens, beet greens, or lettuce.
Cheese
I think you have to have cheese. Again, that’s just my preference, having grown up in Wisconsin, we had a lot of cheese, and still, I like cheese. The top keto food is one you like. It might not be the same as mine.
Cream
And then finally, cream or half and half is my last keto food because I would like that in my coffee or in eggs the way we make them.
Top 10 keto foods conclusion
Keto foods, in general, are very low in carbohydrates. Really, there’s no “keto food”. It’s a metabolic state. That’s an understanding of what ketosis means. I know people are somewhat afraid of that, but remember, every human goes into nutritional ketosis if they don’t eat for two days. It’s what we’ve stored in our body as energy. We store fat on our bodies, so I don’t think it’s an abnormal or unsafe situation to be in. Keep the carbs super low so your body generates its own ketones from the fat that you’re starting to burn. That’s the secret to the keto diet. Watch the full video here.