Keto for Vegetarians

[Grannie75]

My daughter is not diabetic but is impressed with my weight loss and has mentioned that she would be interested in following a keto type LCHF diet, just for weight loss.
She is a vegetarian and all the keto veggie books she has seen consist of mainly eggs and veg, which considering she needs to cook for hubby and 2 teenage children is going to be very hard to fit in around the other meals. I have two questions please.
1. If she cuts down on carbs and increases fats possibly using tofu etc instead of meat will this work? ( her 2 children are veggie, but hubby is not)
2. Can you recommend any recipe books that may offer alternative meals without always being egg based

Many thanks for any help

 

[Brunneria]

Hi,

I will tag in @Avocado Sevenfold who is vegan and manages to LCHF - so she is an expert!

 

[Avocado Sevenfold]

My daughter is not diabetic but is impressed with my weight loss and has mentioned that she would be interested in following a keto type LCHF diet, just for weight loss.
She is a vegetarian and all the keto veggie books she has seen consist of mainly eggs and veg, which considering she needs to cook for hubby and 2 teenage children is going to be very hard to fit in around the other meals. I have two questions please.
1. If she cuts down on carbs and increases fats possibly using tofu etc instead of meat will this work? ( her 2 children are veggie, but hubby is not)
2. Can you recommend any recipe books that may offer alternative meals without always being egg based

Many thanks for any help

Cutting carbs is the main thing. She only needs to increase fats if she is hungry due to the drop in carbs. There are several easy ways to substitute common carbs for lower carb ones that she and the family may enjoy such as making spaghetti from courgettes, making rice from cauliflower, making mash from celeriac, turnip or cauliflower instead of spuds.

There are many lower carb breads available now. Several types of Quorn are now egg free and are low in carbs. If she likes fake sausages etc, Farmfoods have just launched a range of vegan sausages, burgers, meatballs and mince which happen to be low carb. Tofu and seitan are low carb/high protein.

For healthy fats she could have nuts, nut butters, seeds, tahini, olives, olive oil, rapeseed oil, virgin coconut oil and avocado.

As she is not diabetic, beans and pulses might be an option. Depends how low carb she wants to go. I eat them as they don't affect my blood glucose levels much, but then I don't aim for keto. I have only achieved ketosis in the past by eating tiny portions. I think for someone without insulin resistance, weight loss might be achievable by just avoiding the big carb hitters such as sugar, breakfast cereals, pasta, rice, potatoes, tropical fruits, pastry etc plus some moderate exercise if possible.

I can't think of any eggless-veggie books, but there are lots of websites and blogs such as this one http://www.onegreenplanet.org/vegan-food/weekly-meal-plan-the-low-carb-vegan-menu/ plus there is a vegetarian sub forum on this site which, although not necessarily low carb, may have a few ideas she could pick up http://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/category/vegetarian-diet-forum.71/

 

[Grannie75]

Very many thanks I will pass this all on to her, I am sure this will really help her get started

 

[DCUKMod]

Very many thanks I will pass this all on to her, I am sure this will really help her get started

Grannie - Have you looked at the Diet Doctor vegetarian recipes?

https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/recipes/vegetarian-2

I'm not veggie, so couldn't comment too much on them, but some of those dishes look delicious to me,

Alternatively, she could look at www.yummly.com . Yummly is a recipe aggregator which, once joined (it's free) and signed in, allows you to say your preferences (in various categories and diets) to allow it to tailor the recipes it shows you. I'm low carb, gluten free, I'm happy to eat spicy foods and am a competent cook, but it is possible to filter on how spicy you like things, how long it takes to prepare and cook and also how complicated or simple it has to be. I have found loads of lovely recipes there. You can then save your recipes to your account to return to at any time, although I use CopyMeThat for that, as I can save from all sorts of sites, in one place.

I hope she does well.

 

[Grannie75]

Many thanks to you all, I will pass all the info on to her. She is not a true vegan, but she doesn't eat eggs but apart from this just a normal veggie