The Best Keto Thanksgiving Recipes (2024)

FAQs

How do you survive Thanksgiving on keto? ›

A lazy keto diet consists of low-carb foods like meat, fish, full-fat dairy and non-starchy vegetables, but limits high-carb foods such as bread, potatoes, sugary snacks and some fruits. If you've tried the keto before and found it too tedious, lazy keto could be a good compromise.

If you're unfamiliar with a keto diet, here's the quick explanation: It's extremely low in carbohydrates and high in fat. Meat, including turkey with skin, is fine to consume, but other Thanksgiving staples aren't. Mashed potatoes are off limits, along with bread stuffing, rolls, sugary cranberry sauce and desserts.

Cutting carbs cold turkey means there's suddenly an overload of insulin in the blood. This can lead to physical changes, such as headaches and shakiness, and emotional changes, such as irritability and depression.

The basic rules of keto are eating few carbohydrates and emphasizing fat with a moderate intake of protein. In order to be in a state of ketosis, you will likely have to track the amount of carbohydrates you eat by weighing out your food.

Foods you can eat on the keto diet include fish and seafood, meat and poultry, non-starchy vegetables like bell peppers, broccoli, and zucchini, avocados, berries, nuts and seeds, eggs, high-fat dairy products, olive oil and other oils, and high-cocoa chocolate.

Net carbs are calculated by taking the total grams of carbohydrate in a food and subtracting the amount of fiber. In this case, popcorn contains 6 grams of carbs per 1 cup serving and 1.2 grams of fiber, bringing the net carbs per serving to 4.8 grams. Yes friends, popcorn is indeed a keto food.

These symptoms, which can feel similar to the flu, are caused by the body adapting to a new diet consisting of very little carbohydrates. Reducing your carb intake forces your body to burn ketones for energy instead of glucose ( 1 ).

Can I eat all I want on keto? ›

While it's true that the keto diet involves eating lots of protein and fat with very limited carbohydrates, it doesn't mean you can eat in infinite quantities. Like any diet, its success depends on you achieving a calorie deficit.

Eating a diet rich in fat while also limiting carbs prompts your body to burn fat, rather than glucose, for fuel. That's the basis of ketosis. People following a ketogenic diet get 75% of their calories from fats, which ideally should come from avocado, nuts, olive oils, and other unsaturated, or healthy, fats.

Keto-friendly alcoholic drinks

Many low carb alcohol options are available if you follow a keto diet. For instance, pure forms of alcohol like whiskey, gin, tequila, rum, and vodka are all completely free of carbs. You can drink them straight or combine them with low carb mixers for more flavor.

The reality is, you're probably not consuming that many calories—and even if you did, “consuming more than the needed amount of calories in one day due to a holiday meal will not negatively impact your health in any way,” says Kage.

People following the keto diet should be eating foods like fatty fish, eggs, dairy, meat, butter, oils, nuts, seeds and low-carb vegetables. “Fat bombs” like unsweetened chocolate or coconut oil can help people reach their daily goals for fat intake. Keto-compliant foods like red meats and nuts can be costly.