We all crave something sweet sometimes, and that’s okay. However, if you feel constant cravings for carbohydrates, this could be a sign of a chronic disorder in your diet, sleep routine, or metabolism. Sweet cravings tend to be stronger in people who have carbs in their high-sugar diet. However, it can also occur in those who follow a keto diet and completely avoid sugar and heavy carbs.
Are you a sweet tooth starting a ketogenic diet? We have already studied the main causes of sugar cravings on the keto diet and ways to overcome them without breaking the diet. This article will discuss the most popular keto sweet cravings and their healthy substitutes. Let’s figure it out together!
Keto Food Cravings and Their High-Fat Alternatives
Cookies, Donuts, Cakes, and Other Baked Goods
Often we try to reduce stress with cookies or some other sweet pastry. Usually, an intense desire for such food is only psychological in nature [1]. You can make sweet baked goods using keto-friendly flours like almond flour, coconut flour, and keto sweetener. This way, you’ll get keto-friendly donuts or waffles and satisfy your emotional cravings and get health benefits.
You do not need to limit yourself to your favorite foods during the keto diet. If your favorite recipes are high in carbs, you can find a keto alternative to any ingredient and make any dessert low-carb. For example, you can try baking with keto brown sugar for delicious caramel-flavored cookies. Local shops, bakeries, and patisseries can also be helpful in finding high-protein snacks. Keto baking is becoming more popular every day, so that you can find delicious low-carb alternatives to muffins and cupcakes [2].
Chocolate Bars
Another source of fast carbohydrates for emotional eating and stress relief is chocolate. Of course, there’s nothing better than a chocolate bar in the middle of a hard day’s work, right? But, in fact, high-sugar chocolate bars don’t give you healthy energy. Instead, they lead to a sharp surge of energy that lasts a short time and is accompanied by an equally sharp decline in strength. It is how your body senses spikes in blood sugar levels.
If you’re craving chocolate bars on keto, you may just lack quick energy. In this case, you can help your body with berries and nuts or use a low-carb alternative to a candy bar. If you choose the sugar substitute option, your brain will get the usual pleasure signals without the extra carbs.
You can also use fat bombs. Fat bombs are usually based on healthy fats such as heavy cream, butter, cocoa butter, or coconut oil. There are many recipes for fat bombs. However, they are all simple. Take healthy fats, add some sweetener, nuts, seeds, or dark chocolate, and refrigerate. These healthy keto-friendly snacks help to satisfy sugar cravings and provide long-lasting energy.
Porridge and Granola
Many people experience cravings not for sweet foods but for the usual food on a keto diet. And often, such a craving is a breakfast meal. If you’re used to eating porridge or granola for breakfast, then you might miss it on a low-carb diet. However, you can find a way out in this case, too, having a hearty breakfast consisting of healthy fats and proteins that will saturate you with energy for the whole day.
The basis of keto porridge or keto granola is usually seeds and nuts mixed in various proportions for a mixture of flavors. In order to get crunchy granola, you need to grind nuts with seeds, add a little sweetener, and roast this mixture in the oven. A great choice is an erythritol, which caramelizes like sugar when baked and adds crunch to your keto granola. Use a variety of nuts, chia, pumpkin and flax seeds, sunflowers, and low-carb dried berries. You will like this granola more!
To get a smooth keto porridge, you can experiment with mixing different kinds of keto-friendly flours. For example, I love keto porridge, which is made up of flaxseed flour, almond flour, almond milk, and erythritol. It’s very simple and tasty! You can use coconut flour with coconut flakes by mixing it with warm coconut milk and adding various berries, macadamia nuts, or peanut butter. A keto diet is not a reason to deny yourself the usual breakfast!
Fruits
Fruit seems like a harmless snack to us, but it can be high in sugar, preventing your weight loss. It is what makes them a forbidden food during the keto diet. However, if you are experiencing fruit cravings on a keto diet, you can choose low-carb options that will satisfy your appetite and help you stay in ketosis.
Choose berries like raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, or blackberries. Add lemons and avocados to your diet and allow yourself to occasionally eat half a grapefruit or a couple of watermelon slices. Thus, you will satisfy your intense cravings for fruits and get the vitamins and minerals your body needs.
Always keep your daily net carbs below 20 grams. It is a general recommendation, but your individual needs may vary. For example, someone at the adaptation stage should completely avoid fruits and berries. In contrast, someone can afford to increase the number of daily carbohydrates to 30 and stay in ketosis. Monitor your body and test for ketosis with urine strips if in doubt.
Pizza
We have talked about sugar cravings on the keto diet, referring to sugar and fast carbs. However, the craving for complex carbohydrates is also included in this category because it is no less strong and dangerous. In fact, it doesn’t matter how you break your diet – by eating a huge portion of ice cream or a pizza with a crispy crust. However, like in the case of keto ice cream, you have alternative keto pizza recipes.
In short, you can use any keto-allowed flour, such as a mixture of almond and sesame flour [3]. You can also make a chicken or cauliflower pizza base. You have various delicious low-carb options that are great for your keto diet. Nevertheless, the keto diet is a very satisfying and varied meal plan. There is a place for pizza during your favorite TV series.
Bread
The habit of eating soups, sauces, and sandwiches with bread brings a lot of torment to people who choose a low-carb diet. But you don’t have to sacrifice your delicious habits. It is enough to replace high-carb recipes on white wheat flour with other bread options – with psyllium, coconut and almond flour, egg whites, and nut butter.
Ketogenic nutrition means reducing the number of carbohydrates in the diet. Accordingly, wheat flour products fall out of the list of foods allowed for consumption. However, if you decide to replace bread with healthier alternatives [4], you can learn how to make it from cream cheese and egg white, flaxseed, and other ingredients. Such bread will comply with all the low-carb or no-carb diet rules.
You can also cook keto bread in different ways: not only in the oven but also in a microwave or a slow cooker. Any of these methods will allow you to get an excellent result if you follow the recipe. Missing burger buns, crunchy toast, or fresh garlic bread? You will be surprised, but you can find a keto alternative for any bread recipe using a variety of low-carb flours and keto-friendly cornstarch substitutes. This keto bread is free of gluten and extra carbs, allowing you to consume it while on a diet.
In low-carb baking, it is very important to strictly observe all proportions and adhere to the ingredients indicated in the recipe. However, the result is worth it because you can get different types of bread without much effort.
Conclusion
Many people fear the word “diet” because it usually means a lot of restrictions and painful cravings for sweet treats. However, this does not apply to the keto diet. You can find an alternative to any high-carb meal on keto and make delicious high-fat meals. Using keto meal alternatives can satisfy your carb cravings without compromising your diet.
And if you don’t like to cook, then you can look for delicious keto alternatives in stores, pastry shops, or bakeries. So experiment and let your keto diet bring you pleasure without painful cravings!
Sources:
- DiNicolantonio, J. J., O’Keefe, J. H., & Wilson, W. L. (2018). Sugar addiction: is it real? A narrative review. British journal of sports medicine, 52(14), 910–913. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2017-097971
- Hopkin, L., Broadbent, H., & Ahlborn, G. J. (2021). Influence of almond and coconut flours on Ketogenic, Gluten-Free cupcakes. Food chemistry: X, 13, 100182. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fochx.2021.100182
- Peris, M., Rubio-Arraez, S., Castelló, M. L., & Ortolá, M. D. (2019). From the Laboratory to the Kitchen: New Alternatives to Healthier Bakery Products. Foods (Basel, Switzerland), 8(12), 660. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods8120660
- Gillespie, R., & Ahlborn, G. J. (2021). Mechanical, sensory, and consumer evaluation of ketogenic, gluten-free breads. Food science & nutrition, 9(6), 3327–3335. https://doi.org/10.1002/fsn3.2308
