Keto for Vegetarians

Hi,

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

Grannie75 said:

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

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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/