Don't believe the nay sayers - you can have fruit on keto!

You just have to be very careful about which ones to choose, and how much to have. But we can do that, can't we?

The posts so far:

• How we were made to fear dietary fat, why we don’t need to, and why that was disastrous.
• Metabolic flexibility and how that ties in with ancestral eating
• The importance of not eating continually, and how we can benefit from even a short break in eating
• How to switch from being a carb burner to a fat burner more easily
• The first part of a step by step “How To” of actually changing the food - cut back on processed foods and eat good quality fats - if you’re on a high carb, standard Western diet, this is probably more useful to start with than the last post
• An example of a day on keto for me
• A useful keto food - mayo, and more meal examples
• A useful keto snack - macadamia muffins, and more meal examples
• Recap, overview on cutting back carbs, and more meal examples
• Breads for various diets, including keto
• Best keto vegetables

Before we go any further, I want to talk about total carbs vs net carbs. The difference is the fibre, which doesn't affect blood sugar levels.

Net carbs are the total carbs less the amount of fibre. Often when people talk about how many carbs you can have on keto, they mean net carbs.

So now you know what I'm talking about when I distinguish between total and net carbs, when we're looking at fruit.

As a general rule, fruits tend to be higher in carbs than vegetables, so many people on a keto diet prefer to have vegetables, as they can have more. But, as I'm always harping on about, we're all different in what works best for us, and for some people fruits work better than vegetables. Or you might choose to have a combination.

Let's take me as an example. I'm aiming for about 24 grams of total carbs per day, which usually comes down to about 20 grams of net carbs. I'm spreading this over three meals, so aiming for about 8 grams of carbs per meal.

There are small amounts of carbs on some of the other foods that might be in a meal such as nuts, dairy products or coconut. So a rough rule of thumb might be that I'm looking for 5 grams of total carbs in the form of fruit or vegetables.

So, which fruits give us most bang for our buck?

If you're looking for a serve giving you about 5 grams of carbs, this is roughly how much total weight of each fruit you can have, rounded a little bit.

The dark red-blue fruits such as tamarillos, berries, cherries and currants mostly come out best for quantity and nutrition:

• Tamarillo = 110 gm - as long as you don't eat them like we did as kids, with sugar!
• Strawberries = 60 gm
• Blackberries = 50 gm
• Raspberries = 45 gm
• Cranberries = 40 gm - but again, don't add sugar!
• Boysenberries = 40 gm
• Cherries = 40 gm
• Blackcurrants = 35 gm
• Blueberries = 35 gm

Tamarillo Image Source

Stone fruit are next best, for me anyway, as they would have been traditional for my ancestors. Pip fruit would have been as well, but they are so much sweeter now that you can't have very much.

• Peaches = 50 gm
• Nectarines = 45 gm
• Plums = 45 gm
• Apricots = 45 gm
• Apples = 35 gm
• Pears = 30 gm

Other fruits such as citrus and tropical tend not to be as good, but there are a couple that could be fitted into your plan.

• Lemon = 55 gm
• Lime = 45 gm
• Grapefruit = 45 gm
• Orange = 40 gm
• Kiwifruit = 35 gm
• Mango = 35 gm
• Pineapple = 35 gm
• Banana = 20 gm

Choose wisely, one of the top ones in each category, and you could still have one or two small serves of fruit per day.

Last week's food diary

I've stuck to plan all through the week.

Each day I've had a fruit smoothie for breakfast with something from the top group above - usually strawberries, blueberries or cherries as we have those in the freezer. Sometimes I have 1/2 a teaspoon of either cod liver or skate liver oil with it, but not always.

Lunch and dinner are some animal protein, a serve of a fruit or vege, and some fats such as butter, fermented cream, coconut, macadamias or virgin hemp or olive oil.

Occasionally a "fat bomb" like my macadamia mini muffins.

I've added in some new foods, not entirely successfully. Cucumber seems to cause hip and groin pain. Plum maybe causes cramps and gas. Cream cheese causes instant weight gain. So I'm still pretty much on the same safe foods as before Xmas, sigh.