top of page

Nutrition Labels for Keto, Simplified

Let’s break down the nutrition labels and what you need to watch out for if you are trying to follow the keto diet.

peter-bond-510614-unsplash.jpg

It feels like we shouldn’t have to write an entire article on how to read the small nutrition labels at the grocery store, but like many things in life, the labels are much more complex than they seem. The nutrition label has been added to food items and changed a number of times to meet new and always changing regulation. The problem is that food companies, packagers, and distributors, are always finding ways to market things on their products, that may actually be misleading or down right dishonest. Let’s break down the nutrition labels and what you need to watch out for if you are trying to follow the keto diet.

Pro Tip:

Before you even dive into food labels…..try to eat as many natural, real, whole veggies and healthy fats as possible. It’s actually a good thing if it doesn’t have a label. Remember the trick about shopping on the outside perimeter of the grocery store and avoiding the inner isles.

How to Read the Label

The FDA requires food manufacturers to list ingredients in order of weight, from heaviest (or most) to least. The ingredients you see in bold on the label are typically the heaviest in the food. Don’t stop here though, because this information can be misleading.

  • Make sure you are checking the serving size. The ingredients in the label are usually for 1 serving size but your product can have many more. If you are counting intake for keto this can get dangerous and throw you out of ketosis if you aren’t careful.

  • Sugars! These are some of the sneakiest ingredients and can be highly misleading on the food label. Many times, you will see 0g of sugar. But, if you read some of the ingredients off the main list, you will find a number of ingredients that are actually sugars and not good for your keto lifestyle.

  • Barley malt

  • Molasses

  • Cane “anything”

  • Lactose

  • Corn sweetener

  • Dextran

  • Fructose

  • Glucose

  • Galactose

​

Just to name a few.

  • Carbohydrates. Reading and interpreting carb intake is one of the most difficult when it comes to food labels. It’s not always enough to calculate the total carbs, you have to look at net carbs as well as macronutrient ratios.

  • An easy formula to use is Net Carbs = Totals Carbs – Dietary Fibers

  • To dial in your macronutrients is a little more complex. Just know that you are trying to keep the correct ratios of fats, proteins, and carbs. If you are going to choose foods with labels, it’s best to use a macro calculator.

We all know that low carb intake is the backbone of the keto diet.

  • Low-carb ingredients to watch out for. Just because a food touts itself as low-carb, does not make it keto-friendly. Many low-carb foods include these ingredients which you need to keep an eye out for:

  • Red 40

  • Yellow 5

  • Blue 1

  • Potassium Bromate

  • BHA/BHT

  • Sodium Benzoate

  • Polysorbate 60

  • Sucralose

  • Splenda

  • Aspartame

  • Acesulframe potassium

  • Saccharin

Food labels will continue to change, and food manufacturers will continue to place misleading information on them including sugar alcohols, which by law do not have to be counted towards net carbs, but often are used by sneaky manufacturers to prey upon unsuspecting consumers. The only way to truly avoid the lies is to eat natural foods or stick to natural sweeteners that do not affect your blood glucose levels like:

  • Stevia Drops/Extract

  • Erythritol

  • Truvia (Combination of both)

gabriel-1220850-unsplash.jpg

We understand this can be hard, but if you do need to grab labeled foods from the store, this is a good guide on how to decipher the often confusing, and misleading nutrition label.

bottom of page