Cooking Fats
While I use a lot of avocado oil for my cooking there are some alternatives available. You can use butter, ghee, olive oil, coconut oil, lard, chicken fat, duck fat, bacon fat and goose fat for your cooking. You want to avoid all hydrogenated vegetable oils. Stick to the list above for cooking
Meat Options
I eat pretty much anything that moves and is edible. In most cases you can substitute the meat if you don’t eat something in particular. Any and every animal/bird meat is Keto. That means cows, bulls, buffalo, ox, reindeer, regular deer, pig, wild boar, kangaroo, camel, horse, snake, crocodile etc. Birds like chicken, pigeon, duck, goose, quail etc. All seafood is fine, so any kind of fish, squid, octopus, oysters, prawns. I think you get the idea. What you want to keep in mind is using the fatty cuts of meat and where possible keep the skin on. You want to not go in for the ‘lean meat’ but if you have no option it’s fine to use. Most of the substitutions will be based on the recipe itself.
When it comes to cold cuts and sausages is where you really have to be aware. You want to try and find products with the least amount of ingredients. Avoid anything with ‘sugar’ in it. If your sausage reads less than 80% meat then it’s probably best to avoid it. So you need to start reading ingredient and nutritional labels of food from here on out.
Vegetable Options
Almost all green vegetables are fine to consume. You can eat mushrooms, peppers, onions, tomato (yes it’s a fruit I know) and eggplant as well. What you want to avoid are starchy vegetables like potatoes, yams, sweet potatoes etc. For now at least you will also avoid carrots, corn, peas and beets. Just an FYI no lentils or legumes are allowed (I know they are not vegetables).
Beverage Options
Absolutely NO ALCOHOL. The idea is to lose weight and alcohol is not your friend so you aren’t going to drink any. What you can drink is water, black coffee or tea and green tea. No mil and absolutely NO SUGAR! If you feel the need for some ‘dairy’ or ‘milk’ then you can use heavy whipping cream, almond milk, coconut milk or soy milk. Remember to make sure they are sugar free. If you need to have it ‘sweetened’ then stick to stevia or erythritol. For my friends living in India please check my Keto shopping guide for Indians to find out what I recommend.
The Menu
Breakfast – Eggs, bacon and guacamole. It’s really pretty basic but here are your options. The avocado can be substituted for spinach or broccoli. You can fry it in the residual bacon fat after cooking the eggs or you can alternatively just fry it in butter. You can substitute the pork bacon with turkey bacon or chicken sausages. If you are vegetarian you can eat paneer or haloumi instead of the bacon.
Lunch – Ground beef with broccoli & zucchini – The beef can be substituted with any ground meat of choice. Chicken will do, so will crocodile. Any meat is OK! For the vegetables you can use Brussels sprouts, asparagus, spinach, mushrooms etc. Any Keto vegetables will be fine. If you want to keep this dairy free you can use coconut cream instead of the cheese and cream that I use it will be fine.
In the video I mention not to throw the broccoli stem. There are 3 uses for it. You can make my broccoli cheddar soup. You can cut the stalk into cubes and boil it and use it like a fake potato in my Keto poha recipe. And you can use it to thicken your sauces by boiling it and then blending it into a puree like I did in my Keto pot roast recipe. If you are vegetarian you can use cottage cheese instead of the beef. You can also used crumbled tofu.
Snack – I guess instead of ham you can use chicken salami if you don’t eat pork. Chicken & turkey ham are also real things that exist. With regards to the cheese you can use anything you like. Always try and get quality cheese with as few additional ingredients as possible. Vegetarians can substitute the ham with an omelet or a boiled egg. If you don’t want to use mustard you can use a store bought Keto mayo or you can make your own Keto mayo. Hot sauce is an alternative too, find one without sugar.
Dinner – The chicken salad is pretty simple. You can use beef steak instead of chicken if you like. Any seafood is fine as well. If you can’t get curry powder then any sugar free seasoning will do. I suggest sticking to paprika, cayenne pepper, tumeric, cumin and spices like these or dried herbs like oregano etc.
For vegetarians, paneer and halloumi are good options or even fresh buffalo mozzarella. The salad is just lettuce with baby spinach and cherry tomatoes and a bit of cabbage shredded in. You can also make your own salad mix or just buy it from the store. You can also substitute the soya sauce for the more Keto friendly coconut aminos.
