The answer to whether keto bread is a good idea for you is: it depends.
If you’re following a keto diet, bunless burgers and lunchmeat rollups are great, but let’s face it: sometimes you just want some bread! But bread is verboten on keto, right? Not so fast.
Search for “keto bread” and you’ll find plenty of recipes you can make yourself. For less ambitious cooks, it’s easy to find keto bread or “zero net carb bread” at most supermarkets now. But are these too good to be true? Let’s take a look: is keto bread healthy?
Can Keto Bread Fit in Your Diet?
I’m going to give it to you straight: the answer to whether keto bread is a good idea for you is: it depends.
First, let’s get clear on the fact that there is no such thing as a “keto food.” Ketosis is a metabolic state that occurs in your body. It’s not a property inherent to a food. So, there’s no such thing as “keto bread” – or “keto steak” or “keto butter,” for that matter. Food is not ketogenic; your body is ketogenic.
So when you see keto bread or zero-net-carb bread, understand that there’s nothing magical about them that will induce ketosis. These are marketing terms that indicate these breads are much lower in carbohydrate compared to regular bread. They do still contain carbs, but because their carb content is much lower than that of regular bread, they might – might – fit into your keto diet.
Ingredients Matter
Despite being marketed as suitable for keto diets or having zero net carbs, some commercially made keto breads might still affect your blood sugar and insulin. And if you’re following keto specifically in order to control your blood sugar or improve health issues related to chronically high insulin, then you want to limit as much as possible your consumption of foods that have a significant impact on these.
The ingredient lists on commercially made keto breads typically include things like modified or resistant wheat starch, potato starch, or modified tapioca starch. News flash: those are carbs, and some people are more sensitive to them than others. Some folks can eat these breads with little to no metabolic effect, while for others these could be a roadblock to getting the best results from keto.
These breads also usually contain a lot of added fiber, like oat fiber, inulin, psyllium, or wheat bran. While these fibers might not impact your blood sugar, they can cause bloating and other unpleasant GI effects. (Breads marketed as zero-carb or very low net carbs are high in added fibers because subtracting the fiber grams from the total carbohydrate is what helps to keep the net carbs low.)
Homemade Keto Bread
Keto bread that you make yourself is a different story. You probably don’t have a bag of modified wheat starch in your pantry. Homemade keto bread recipes often call for eggs or powdered eggs, protein powders, almond or coconut flour, cream cheese, and, thanks to the growing popularity of the carnivore diet, even ground meat.
There are numerous “carnivore bread” or egg white bread recipes that are, in fact, zero-carb or very close to it. Those will likely be fine for a keto diet and most people will be able to include them on a regular basis and get the results they want. Go easy on breads whose main ingredients are nut flours, though. Overdoing nut flours can slow down weight loss in some folks.
A common ingredient that could be a dealbreaker right away for some people is gluten. Many mass-produced keto breads feature wheat gluten as the protein source. If you have celiac disease, that’s gonna be a no-go for you. The same might be true if you know you have a non-celiac gluten sensitivity and feel best when steering clear of gluten. Just remember that something marketed as low carb or keto isn’t always going to be gluten free.
Which Keto Breads Will Work for You?
There’s one way to know for certain how different kinds of keto bread affect you: test your blood sugar. If you have a CGM (continuous glucose monitor) or regular glucometer and there’s a keto bread you’ve been eyeing longingly at the store, try it. Have a piece and see if it raises your blood sugar more than you’re comfortable with.
And keep in mind that the ingredients on different kinds of keto bread vary significantly, so just because one type raises your glucose substantially doesn’t mean they all will. If you’ve really been missing bread and you want the convenience of buying one ready-made, you might have to experiment with a few different brands to find one that works well for you.
If you’re not into that kind of testing, use a more hands-off approach. Include your keto bread of choice in your diet for a month or so and see what happens.
Assess how you’ve been feeling, what’s happened to your weight, whether the bread affected your appetite or induced cravings for more carbs, or anything else you might have noticed, like a return of heartburn, skin problems, or some other issue that was gone before you started experimenting with keto bread.
It’s Your Choice
If you don’t notice any negative effects, then the bread isn’t a problem for you. Bon appétit! But if unpleasant things do come up – and the bread is the only thing that’s been different about your diet – then you’ve got a decision to make.
You can either say goodbye to keto bread altogether or choose to have it once in a while but not make it a daily staple.
Even if it does raise your blood sugar more than the other foods you typically eat or some other issue returns temporarily, you might decide that’s a tradeoff you’re willing to make for the sake of occasionally enjoying some bread. (You’re allowed to do that! You do know there are no keto police, right?)
A third option, of course, is to spend a bit more time in the kitchen and make a homemade version of very low carb bread free of dodgy ingredients and that will be more conducive to helping you reach your goals. (See some keto breadmaking tips here!)
Bottom Line
The only person who can tell you for certain which kinds of keto bread will work well for you is you. If you’ve been doing keto sans bread for a while and you don’t miss the stuff, then “keep calm and keto on.” But if you’ve been jonesing for something besides lettuce to put your burger on or to dip in your runny egg yolks, experiment with different kinds of keto bread until you find one that’s a good fit.
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