There's No Such Thing as 'KETO' Food!

[00:00:00] Speaker A: There is no such thing as keto food. That is the thing that came to mind the other day when we were sitting around chatting with some friends and talking about eating keto food. [00:00:11] Speaker B: Yeah. The concept of I eat a whole lot of keto food, and I'm not getting any keto out of it. [00:00:17] Speaker A: You know, you eat protein, meats, things like that. You get proteins from it. [00:00:23] Speaker B: Well, you eat. You take a vitamin and you get vitamins from it. [00:00:26] Speaker A: Eat some vegetables. Cause you wanna get, you know, your vegetable nutrition and vitamins out of it. [00:00:32] Speaker B: Well, I'm eating some keto. [00:00:33] Speaker A: Well, I'm eating butter. [00:00:35] Speaker B: I'm not getting any keto out of it. [00:00:36] Speaker A: I'm eating bacon. I'm still not getting any keto out of it. So it just brought to mind there's no such thing as keto food. You don't get keto from keto food. [00:00:47] Speaker B: Right. [00:00:47] Speaker A: And we thought that would be a really great discussion for today's podcast. [00:00:52] Speaker B: So here we go. [00:00:53] Speaker A: Welcome to the Duster Mud podcast, episode 55. My name is Shelley, and I'm rich, and after about 25 years of being in the air force, Rich was a fighter pilot. We retired to southwest Missouri, and we live in the Ozarks and farm on a regenerative, first generation farm where we. [00:01:13] Speaker B: Have a lot of different animals. We have cows and sheep and pigs and dairy cows and chickens and ducks. [00:01:22] Speaker A: Yeah, and some dogs. [00:01:23] Speaker B: Yeah, lots of dogs. [00:01:24] Speaker A: And so we farm, and we farm because we wanted really good food. And that led us to sharing our passion about farming freedom, because, well, after the air force, in 25 years, we are big proponents of freedom and food. Food. And we farm because of the food. And today's topic is going to be about food and how it affects our body. [00:01:50] Speaker B: Yeah, we'll start with keto. What is it? [00:01:53] Speaker A: What is keto? [00:01:54] Speaker B: You know, when. When folks have the concept of. And we're sort of, you know, joking, but, like, seriously, when folks are saying, I'm eating keto food, but I'm not getting keto results, like, what is happening? Why is that not, you know, I eat all of the standard american diet things because that's what the standard American eats. And I eat these keto things, but I'm not seeing any keto out of it. [00:02:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:26] Speaker B: And, you know, for some people, without a really baseline understanding of what is keto, that becomes frustrating. [00:02:36] Speaker A: Keto. The word keto has just become commonplace at this point in the world, and it has kind of come to mean a restrictive diet. And it. You eat a lot of bacon, and you eat a lot of butter, maybe some cheese and eggs on the side. And there's just far more to it than that because keto is actually a physiological occurrence that happens within our bodies based on what we eat. [00:03:03] Speaker B: Yeah, it really does depend on the proportion of the macronutrients that you eat. And if you're eating carbohydrates in any really large amount, you're not going to go into ketosis. [00:03:23] Speaker A: Right. [00:03:23] Speaker B: Like a physiological state. So our bodies, if given the opportunity, they prefer glucose as fuel, and as long as there's carbohydrates, there's an abundance of glucose, and so our bodies just continue using that as fuel. The state of ketosis, the ketogenic diet refers to going into a. A nutritional state of ketosis. That state is where your body transitions from using glucose as fuel to using ketones as fuel. And that's an actual transition. And in order to make that transition, in order to force your body to use a different kind of fuel, you have to restrict the amount of carbohydrates that you. That you take in very, very low. Then your body can start to convert fat into ketones, and now your body starts to run off of a different kind of fuel, unless or until you give it glucose. [00:04:31] Speaker A: Right. [00:04:31] Speaker B: And we'll get to that. But, you know, just the state of ketosis. I'm. I'm keto. Well, what that what you're actually saying, if you say I'm keto, you're. You what that means, like, scientifically, that means that you are eating foods at a level of about 70% fat, 20% protein, ten or less percent carbohydrates. And that has forced your body into a state of ketosis wherein your body is using ketones for fuel instead of glucose. That is what I am keto actually means. [00:05:13] Speaker A: Right. So one of the things that we have noticed within the, quote, keto space or dietary. Wait, I need to stop. Before we go any further with this, I am not a doctor. This is not medical advice. Please seek some alternate advice if you're looking for medical advice. [00:05:32] Speaker B: If you want to hang out and chat with some people that have been doing this for over five years, we're happy to hang out. [00:05:40] Speaker A: We are speaking from our experience, our research, and five years worth of learning about what this type of dietary nutritional state is. Outside of that, we give no advice. Disclaimer over. Okay, we'll carry on. So, within the keto space and the dietary space, we've noticed that, well, I. [00:06:09] Speaker B: Ate keto food, and like, the commercial realm of things, just exacerbates this, because now, like even Walmart, in every grocery store, you've got keto this, keto that, keto that. And most of the time, they're careful to say keto friendly. [00:06:27] Speaker A: And that is the difference. Is, is it keto friendly? Is it a keto food? What is a keto food? There's no such thing as a keto food. [00:06:39] Speaker B: Correct. [00:06:40] Speaker A: The only thing that there is that it would, I would ever even consider to be a keto food would be an MCT oil. In my opinion. I could label that one a keto food because consuming MCT oil, your liver immediately, under the right circumstances, will turn that into ketones. That's the only thing. [00:07:05] Speaker B: Okay. [00:07:06] Speaker A: In my, there's still no keto food. But if I was going to say, oh, there is something that can help me to produce ketones, still not gonna. It's not keto, but it's gonna help me produce more ketones would be an MCT oil. Outside of that, everything is only keto friendly. And that just simply means it's low carb and it has more zero sugar and maybe it's got some more fats in it, but those boxed things are maybe helpful, but I don't even know if they are. [00:07:44] Speaker B: One of the interesting thing, I was looking at some, just scrolling through, looking at some of the offerings in the local store, Walmart, actually, that are calling themselves keto or keto friendly. And they all rely on the discussion of net carbohydrates, which there are varying opinions on net carbs, but everything that is labeled that way is highly processed. And a lot of them have canola oil and corn oil and, like, all of these different seed oils, and they're really highly processed. And they've got all kinds of weird. [00:08:26] Speaker A: Things, weird ingredients that they had to use in order to make it do a thing. But like. [00:08:31] Speaker B: But you look at it and it's a candy bar. [00:08:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:37] Speaker B: You know, it's still just a candy bar. It's a granola bar. It's a box of cereal. It's, you know, it's all of these things that say keto or keto friendly. And what they've done is they've, they've bumped up the fiber so high in whatever the food is, that the. So to get to net carbs, you take the total carbohydrates in a food and you subtract the carbs from fiber because your body doesn't digest the fiber, it really doesn't cause a blood sugar spike. So. So folks will consider that a net carb. You also subtract sugar alcohols to get to net carbs. So they will, they will make a bread or a tortilla or a cereal and they will bump the fiber way high in it. And then that will then reduce the amount of carbs from a net carb perspective. But there's still a bunch of really not good stuff in it. [00:09:37] Speaker A: Weird, weird ingredients. The best thing that you can do to keep yourself, if you're trying to be keto and eat a ketogenic diet, is to eat real whole food. And you know what the macros are. You know what's in the butter, you know what's in the steak, you know what's in the ribeye, you know what's in the eggs. [00:09:59] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:59] Speaker A: And to eat as whole of food as you possibly can, that's the, we're proponents for if it is what it always was, eat that. [00:10:10] Speaker B: Yeah. And, and just because you're eating a food that says keto does not mean that it's contributing to your macro levels where you need them to be. So, you know, if, if you eat everything in there that says keto, and really all that means is low carb, you're still not getting the fats to where, to the percentage of your caloric intake that it needs to be. So you still need to get 70% of your calories on, on the daily basis. 70% of calories have to come from fats. And just because you're eating a cereal that says keto friendly does not mean that that's helping you get to that 70% of fat. It just means that from a net carb perspective, it's, you're, it's not a lot of carbs. [00:11:00] Speaker A: And I would like to point out a very, very important point of caution. If you or your loved ones or anybody you know is eating keto meals here and there, but they are partaking in the standard american diet via desserts or their snacks or hitting the McDonald's or Chick fil a occasionally while I ate keto for breakfast, but now I lunch you. That is the most dangerous recipe for don't do that because you are, by doing occasionally, quote, cheating, by cheating or only eating keto meals occasionally, you are eating a high fat and high sugar or high carbohydrate occasionally and you're causing damage to your insides. And then the high fat and the cholesterol is going to come behind it and try to do some repair. And that's a recipe for clogged arteries that is not cool. High fat diets go with high fat diets. They don't go with. Paired with a standard american diet, sugar, processed carbs, wheat flour, all of those things have to go. If you're going to actually do a ketogenic diet, it needs to be all or nothing full time. I mean, that's just the way that it is, whether we all like it or not. And we do want. We do like to have some sweets every now and then in those cases. Find you something that is low in carbs. [00:12:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Because it causes inflammation. [00:12:58] Speaker A: Right. And the inflammation is where the damage occurs. [00:13:01] Speaker B: Yep. [00:13:01] Speaker A: Right. [00:13:02] Speaker B: And there are other things like high blood pressure and stress and, like, there are other things that cause inflammation as well. [00:13:08] Speaker A: Right. [00:13:08] Speaker B: And inflammation plus cholesterol don't mix. [00:13:13] Speaker A: They do not. They do not mix. They actually just solid. Just solid. [00:13:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:23] Speaker B: So I think, though, that going back to the foods like you're seeing at the grocery store, the marketing really is leading people to believe that there is a food, a keto. You know, I can eat a keto, and then I get a keto out of it. You know, like, it says keto on the label. I bought it. It says keto. I ate it. Now I'm keto. And really, it couldn't be further from the truth. You know? [00:13:55] Speaker A: Sure. [00:13:56] Speaker B: That there's a. It's a purposeful nutritional state to get to keto. And just buying the food that is labeled keto is not getting you to keto. [00:14:09] Speaker A: Right. [00:14:10] Speaker B: Or just eating the food that you've heard someone say is keto. [00:14:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:15] Speaker B: That does not get you to keto. [00:14:17] Speaker A: Right. Ketosis. Getting into a state of ketosis takes some time. [00:14:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:23] Speaker A: It takes your body time. It takes you not giving it the other energy source and your body switching over to ketones, it takes a few days. It does. It is a full up physiological switch. And you, you know when you're going through the switch generally. And so that is a tell sign that no singular food gets you there. It takes time. [00:14:51] Speaker B: Yeah. And one of the things with, even if you are actually keto and then you. You eat a high carbohydrate meal, that will likely kick you out of ketosis. [00:15:07] Speaker A: Yep. [00:15:08] Speaker B: Right. And so it's not the end of the world. [00:15:12] Speaker A: No. [00:15:13] Speaker B: It's just at that point, you are not keto. You are not in a state of ketosis. [00:15:18] Speaker A: Right. [00:15:19] Speaker B: You can get back into a state of ketosis. [00:15:21] Speaker A: The number one way, the easiest way to get back into a state of ketosis is to fast. [00:15:26] Speaker B: That's right. [00:15:27] Speaker A: Don't eat. And your body will create the energy and use your own fat stores for the energy and make the ketones that way. [00:15:34] Speaker B: Exercise is another good one. Your muscles will quickly use up excess glucose. [00:15:38] Speaker A: Oh, sure. [00:15:39] Speaker B: And it will help you like fasting exercise, get back onto your ketogenic macros and those three things really will help you recover back into a state of ketosis the quickest. And then the benefits that you are seeing from being in ketosis will come right back. Weight loss, mental clarity. There are definitely benefits to being in ketosis, but you have to be in ketosis to see those benefits. You can't eat a box of cereal that says keto on it and get the benefits of being in ketosis. [00:16:18] Speaker A: It just doesn't work that way. It would be nice if it did, but it just quite simply doesn't. [00:16:24] Speaker B: Right. [00:16:24] Speaker A: And the warning or the concern even in this conversation is for people who are trying to do that and believe that it's going to be helpful. And it's not going to be helpful. It's probably going to do more harm than good. [00:16:44] Speaker B: If your body, like your body has to make that transition from using glucose to using ketones, the liver actually changes its function. It starts to convert fat into ketones like it is a liver. The liver changes its function to get to that. And if theres a constant ad of carbs, if theres constant, well, I ate keto for breakfast, lunch and dinner, but then I had a box of ice cream or a tub of ice cream, regular, you know, whatever ice cream or I had a sleeve of oreos or whatever it is. Right. Like if that's happening daily, your body will never convert over to using ketones. It doesn't have to. It doesn't matter that you ate keto foods, you have not induced your body to make that transition into converting fat into ketones. So, like even, and that's why I was a little hesitant. Even with the MCT oil, if you're not in ketosis, your liver won't use it. It won't. [00:17:59] Speaker A: Well, that's fair. [00:17:59] Speaker B: It won't make that conversion. Right? [00:18:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:18:01] Speaker B: So, like, if you, if you are in ketosis, my assumption, right. If you are in ketosis, MCT oil is great because it goes straight from your stomach to your liver. I mean, it like goes straight there and your liver grabs those medium chain triglycerides and immediately converts them into ketones. Like, that's a huge way to boost your ketone production if you're in ketosis, right. [00:18:24] Speaker A: The encouraging thing is if you are in ketosis or have been practicing a ketogenic lifestyle for any length of time, month, couple of months, even. You are, your body has made that transition and gets to that point of preference. And you can sometimes eat things that are maybe higher in carbs, but it's going to affect your body a little bit less and you're going to get right back into ketosis a lot faster because your body is preferring the, the fats and the ketones over the glucose. [00:19:00] Speaker B: And they've, within the keto spaces, they'll refer to that as fat adaption. Right, or I have become fat adapted. [00:19:06] Speaker A: And once your body is in a fat adapted state, it's a little bit more forgiving for those times whenever you maybe have to eat something that you wouldn't normally. [00:19:18] Speaker B: From our research, that's typically about a six week process for your liver to change over enough that it will recover very quickly back to converting fat into ketones. Um, but until then, it's real easy for your body to switch back very quickly to using glucose, right. And then take a long time to adapt back. Long time, you know, a couple of days to adapt back to, uh, using fat for ketones. So, like, especially if you're starting out, if you're starting out like a, I'm not going to go cold turkey, I'm going to keep eating regular and just add some keto things in. [00:20:02] Speaker A: It won't work. [00:20:03] Speaker B: It just won't ever happen. [00:20:04] Speaker A: It won't ever happen. [00:20:05] Speaker B: Your body will never make that transition over. Like, you have to get into that state of 70% fat and less than 10% carbs. [00:20:15] Speaker A: Right. It all sounds a little bit doom and gloom, but there are so many real benefits to eating and eating this, eating a ketogenic diet and living a ketogenic lifestyle. Benefits far, in our opinion, far outweigh the, well, I can't ever have, you know, birthday cake again. Far outweigh it. And there are substitutes for the birthday cake. [00:20:41] Speaker B: Right. [00:20:42] Speaker A: So the, the benefits include mental clarity, increased energy, and we're seeing people who are up in age who have lost their energy, their mental clarity, just, I mean, you know, people get old timers, they do. And grain brain is something that, there's a book by Doctor David Perlmutter, and it's a very good book called Grain Brain. Talking about the effects of grains on our brain and adapting or adopting a ketogenic diet can mitigate that. And so there are so many benefits to reducing inflammation within your body. Therefore you have less arterial damage. So there are so many benefits to doing it that while it might sound. Wow, that's too hard. The benefits outweigh the hard. [00:21:39] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. [00:21:41] Speaker A: And we encourage you, whatever stage you are in your life, wherever you are, whether you're in your twenties or whether you're in your eighties, to consider adopting this way of eating because of the numerous benefits. [00:21:59] Speaker B: There's so many studies out right now, y'all, like, you can do a little bit of research on your own and look at the studies of keto for the treatment of diabetes, keto for the treatment of dementia or Alzheimer's, keto for the treatment of obesity, for the treatment of autoimmune disorders. There are so many studies right now on the benefits of a ketogenic diet. There's also, you know, doctors out there that talk about how terrible it is. [00:22:31] Speaker A: Oh. Yep. [00:22:31] Speaker B: So, I mean, at some point, you're going to have to make a decision for yourself, for your health, what works best for you and for us, like, by far the ketogenic lifestyle is. Is the choice that we've made. [00:22:47] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. [00:22:48] Speaker B: And we would encourage you, if that's your choice as well. Do it. Like, really you. You can do it. I would say. Don't get all caught up with these keto labels. Eat good food. [00:23:04] Speaker A: Real food. Real food that you had that came in a package that doesn't have any ingredients on it. That's my preferred type of food that they didn't have to put the, the nutritional information, they don't have to put the, the ingredients on there. You look at it and you kind of know what it is. That. That's my, that's my number one go to. [00:23:25] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Things like, you know, butter is. It's butter and. [00:23:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:23:32] Speaker B: Cream is exactly. Cream. And bacon is bacon. [00:23:36] Speaker A: Uh huh. Eggs are eggs, and there are some ingredients in cheese, but mostly it's milk. [00:23:41] Speaker B: Right. [00:23:42] Speaker A: You know, a lot. Yogurt is yogurt. One ingredient type. Things are awesome. [00:23:51] Speaker B: And you were talking about how it may seem. You didn't say it, but daunting, you know, to try to get to this or. Yeah, okay, maybe I could get to it, but I can't ever see myself staying there. And for us, I think one of the key things is we're constantly experimenting with our foods. We're constantly doing something just a little bit different. Like this morning, we, we chopped up some roast beef, fried it in some duck fat. [00:24:25] Speaker A: Roast beef? Like deli meat. Roast beef. Yeah. [00:24:28] Speaker B: Sliced roast beef. [00:24:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Just from. From the deli. So it's easy. [00:24:32] Speaker B: Yeah. Fried it in duck fat and then scrambled some duck eggs and put that on it with some cheese. Yep. Like, I've never heard of roast beef cooked in duck fat with duck eggs and cheese. No, I've never even heard of it. [00:24:48] Speaker A: No. [00:24:49] Speaker B: But it was different. [00:24:50] Speaker A: Yep. It had a little bit of a different flavor. [00:24:52] Speaker B: How do you eat eggs every day? Well, they're always different. [00:24:56] Speaker A: Right. You know, we just. [00:24:58] Speaker B: It's something a little bit different all the time. We make sure that we add the fat to it, you know, and we've talked about that over the past few weeks. We've really gotten back to making sure that we've. We're getting enough fats in our diet, and we really add the fat to it and come up with something different. We add a different spice. We've got a lot of spices in the kitchen. [00:25:20] Speaker A: Add flavor. You know, it doesn't have to be boring. It might be the same set of ingredients, but it doesn't have to be the same set of boring ingredients. [00:25:30] Speaker B: Right. [00:25:30] Speaker A: You can do a lot of different things with those ingredients. [00:25:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:34] Speaker A: Our friends Kevin and Sarah at living traditions homestead, they did, just recently, did a video and they did eggs and they did eggs in five different ways to store your eggs already prepared if you are on a ketogenic diet. That was a really, really good video. It was, yeah. You sure? You guys should check it out. Put the. Put that video in the link or in the. Into show notes. [00:25:59] Speaker B: I can't. I could link it down in the description. [00:26:01] Speaker A: That's what I meant. [00:26:03] Speaker B: Okay. I can. [00:26:04] Speaker A: In the description. That was a good video. [00:26:06] Speaker B: I thought you meant it in the end screen. I can't. No, I can link to it. [00:26:10] Speaker A: Put that in the description because that is a really. That's a really handy bit, especially right. [00:26:16] Speaker B: Now when we're all swimming in eggs. [00:26:17] Speaker A: Swimming in eggs. One of the things that I'm also big on is listening to my body. Sometimes I'll get to where I'll know that I need more fat. It'll, like. I'll, like, want butter. And so I will add more butter to our diet, to my. Whatever I'm cooking or my plate, and I will make sure that I get that. So listening to what you feel like you need. [00:26:40] Speaker B: And the other thing when, especially when we were getting started, we talked about a lot, was eat to satiety. So eat until you're satisfied, until you don't feel hungry anymore. And then stop eating. And the concept of clean your plate goes away. The concept of seconds goes away. Eat until you're satisfied and then quit eating. And then really listen to your body. I'm not saying, like, you know, shovel it until you're satisfied. Yeah, but eat when you're satisfied. When you're satisfied, stop. [00:27:14] Speaker A: And if a meal time comes around and you're not hungry, that's okay. Don't eat. [00:27:19] Speaker B: Don't eat. [00:27:20] Speaker A: Your body doesn't need it. It doesn't need it. Don't eat. When the time comes, then eat. And eat your real food plan that you've come up with. [00:27:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:29] Speaker B: I think that's another one. Like, as you're listening to your body, listen to that. [00:27:34] Speaker A: Let your, am I hungry? [00:27:35] Speaker B: Let your hunger and satisfied hormones work. Actually become sensitive to. I'm hungry and I'm satisfied because there are hormones that tell you both of those things. [00:27:50] Speaker A: Well, we didn't talk about it. When you say the hormones and stuff, another thing that the ketogenic diet can, can help with is your, is type two diabetic insulin resistance. If you are type two diabetic and you're insulin resistant, this diet can really affect that. And in a good way. In a good way such that you're more insulin sensitive, it works better in your system. And you need to make sure that if you're on medications to check with your doctor, make sure it's monitored, because it can, it can, it can affect your blood sugars in a positive way to where you wouldn't need the medication. So please make sure if that's something that you're wanting to try for your type two diabetes, that you monitor that really closely. [00:28:39] Speaker B: That's right. [00:28:39] Speaker A: Yeah. Because it's very, very powerful in that realm. [00:28:44] Speaker B: So I think wrapping this up keto is an amazing thing, but it's an actual state of being. It is a state of ketosis. And just eating a food called keto does not get you into that state. That's really the takeaway here, is you have to actually work to get into ketosis. There's really no such thing as a keto food that I can just eat this food and all of a sudden I'm keto. [00:29:18] Speaker A: Right. While the ketogenic diet might be, you know, kind of counterculture, it is. Well, it is because the standard american diet is the culture. And whenever it feels counter culture or it's just counter everything, I. It is. It is absolutely so worth it. [00:29:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I know we're wrapping this up, but it's interesting to me that so many people say that they are anti establishment, anti everything, but yet I can't stop eating the standard american diet. It's just that it's like, really. Huh? [00:29:59] Speaker A: Well, that's a good thing to end on. Y'all think about that. [00:30:02] Speaker B: All right. Bye, y'all. [00:30:03] Speaker A: Bye, y'all.