Keto Chow Electrolytes
One serving of the Keto Chow meal replacement shake mix contains 1/3 of everything you need. This includes electrolytes such as sodium, potassium chloride, and magnesium malate.
While the shake mix contains electrolytes, many people find they feel better supplementing above and beyond what Keto Chow has. Most users omit the drops from their shakes, but you can add them if you like.
Take a look at our YouTube video. Miriam and Chris talk about the 3 different electrolyte supplements:
- Which one will help you the most?
- How do you measure the electrolytes?
- How much should you use?
You can also check out our previous video.
Each bottle of electrolyte supplements has a “Best By” date, two years from the production date. However, it’s more likely that the plastic bottle will decompose before the electrolytes lose potency.
Currently, there is not a travel size bottle for the Daily Minerals, it only comes in the large bottle. You could repurpose one of the small bottles that come with our other electrolytes. That size bottle will hold 1.6 servings of the Daily Minerals but the opening is so tiny that it will spill without a funnel if you try to fill it.
We are looking into small bottles that will hold 2 or 4 servings but finding one that can be refilled easily and WON’T LEAK is proving to be very difficult.
Our favorite solution is to take a water bottle, add a full serving of the Daily Minerals along with a packet of TRU Lemon. It’s frankly amazing how the lemon changes the flavor. Most are usually able to finish the bottle in about a half-hour but you cant take longer if you like.
You can remove and replace the dropper nozzle on the pocket flask. This allows for easy refilling.
Keto Chow Nutrition
One serving of the Keto Chow dry powder and contains less than 1g of fat and 26g of protein, and can therefore be used in conjunction with a Protein-Sparing Modified Fast. However, be aware that omitting fat will prevent the absorption of certain vitamins (A, D, K), and your Keto Chow will not be as filling.
We recommend mixing your Keto Chow with 10g of fat minimum to gain the full nutritional benefit of Keto Chow. Check out our walkthrough on using the Calorie Calculator to customize Keto Chow to fit your specific requirements.
Some gastric bypass patients are told by their doctors to use OptiFast as part of their recovery. Let’s see how the nutrition in Keto Chow compares to OptiFast and vice versa. We will be comparing the OptiFast Chocolate shake mix to the Keto Chow Chocolate shake mix to make it a direct comparison.
Here is the Cron-O-Meter entry for Optifast, it has the information laid out a little better than the product page on the manufacturer’s website, which does have the ingredients listed.
Here is the Cron-O-Meter entry for Chocolate Keto Chow.
The first thing you may notice is the far higher carbohydrates in OptiFast (15g of net carbs per serving), that would be because the very first ingredient is maltodextrin. Aside from the vitamins and minerals, the main ingredients are: Maltodextrin, Milk Protein Concentrate, Soy Protein Isolate, Calcium Caseinate, Partially Hydrolyzed Guar Gum, Isomaltulose, Canola Oil, Cocoa Processed With Alkali.
The ingredients to Keto Chow are: Milk Protein Isolate, Acacia Gum, Potassium Citrate, Salt, Xanthan Gum, Choline L-Bitartrate, Magnesium Malate, Potassium Chloride. to that you have the vitamins, minerals, flavors etc…
| OptiFast Nutrition | Keto Chow Nutrition |
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It seems you can’t buy OptiFast directly but I found it for $36 per 7 servings for the shake mix. That makes it around $5.14 per meal – you need 5 for a full day of nutrition ($25.70/day). Keto Chow is $4.75 in the single packets or $3.33 if you get a large 21 meal bag – even 3 of the more expensive single meals would only cost $14.25 per day. Putting a little bit of fat into a Keto Chow shake would get you the same 160 calories with FAR more protein, better vitamins and minerals.
Kids, along with pregnant/nursing mothers are a touchy subject. Speaking legally, children, pregnant, or breastfeeding women should not use Keto Chow. Is it still OK for those groups to use?
The Bair kids (along with many of the kids of our employees, friends, and customers) routinely drink Keto Chow. We find it a bit silly that many people think nothing of feeding their children Mac & Cheese, Doritos, or dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets slathered in sugary ketchup. Somehow, a product painstakingly engineered for nutrition is the one that’s suspect.
I give it to my kids. If you have any reservations at all, show the nutrition and ingredients to your doctor.
You just need to find a suitable source for 1300mg of Omega 3 fatty acids. Most fish oil pills will advertise boldly how much fish oil they have. You have to look close to find the amount of EPA and DHA. With typical fish oil pills, you need 5 a day to get 1300mg. If you want to use a different source of Omega 3 (algal oil, krill oil, etc.), look closely at the label and do the math.
No, but you can if you like. One of the primary goals in designing Keto Chow was to make sure that it is nutritionally complete.
Most people will do 2 meals of Keto Chow and 1 meal of regular keto-friendly food. Others only do 1 Keto Chow a day. Some will mix up Keto Chow to a lower calorie amount so they can have other foods as part of their meals.
First things first: there is some confusion between “Splenda” (that you buy at the grocery store) and pure sucralose. Splenda uses bulking agents so that you can “measure it like sugar” – typically this will be maltodextrin which is simply a carbohydrate and no good for a Ketogenic or low carb diet. The maltodextrin in store-bought Splenda will absolutely spike your blood sugar. Pure sucralose, on the other hand, will not. Even if it did have an effect on blood sugar, there is simply too little of it to have any effect. In Keto Chow, we use 0.08g per serving. To put that in perspective: that is 1/64 the weight of a US nickel. Even 0.08g of actual sugar will only raise your blood sugar by 0.32mg/dL – essentially no effect.
You may also find people snidely referencing to sucralose as “chlorinated sugar” – assuming that any form of chlorine is bad for humans. This would be ignoring Sodium Chloride (salt) and other chemical compounds that contain chlorine.
OK, back to the question of why we use sucralose for many of the sweet flavors of Keto Chow. The short answer is: because stevia doesn’t taste very good to the overwhelming majority of our taste testers. Ultimately, stevia, monk fruit, erythritol, or any other “natural sweeteners” are not magical and cause the same reactions in humans as anything else that’s sweet so why not use the best tasting option? We actually paid a 3rd party to do a blind taste test and they confirmed that Keto Chow with sucralose tastes “more natural” than products using Stevia, Erythritol, or Monk Fruit.
- Erythritol and Allulose would seem a good choice but they DOUBLE the weight and volume of Keto Chow, instead of 21 meals you’d get 10 for the same price and shipping. That sucks.
- We do have the “Natural Strawberry” that does use monk fruit instead of sucralose. It costs more to produce and doesn’t taste as good (in my opinion).
- We have the “Base Powder” version which you combine with your choice of flavored/sweetened protein powder – lets you use whatever you’d like. Want to use egg white protein with Stevia? Go for it! You’ll still get all of the vitamins and minerals you’d normally get with Keto Chow.
- We have 4 savory soup flavors (you mix them hot!) that do not use any sweetener, because that would be gross.
Allow me to quote Julie from the Sofa King Keto Facebook group – she illustrates why we use sucralose really well:
Holy what the hell. Go buy Keto Chow. It is NO joke. I am not a packaged foods kinda gal but needed something to get me back on the Keto track. I was thinking, honestly, “ok, I can choke this down for a couple weeks.” Um. NOT EVEN CLOSE. This shiz is delicious!!! And easy to make! Holy wow!
I bought both the peanut butter chocolate and the raspberry cheesecake. I blended 1/2 c heavy cream and 1/2 cup coconut milk with ice with a scoop of chow. Thick like a milkshake. No weird malt “slim fast” taste.
(Chris here) I personally use Keto Chow for at least 2 meals a day, often 3. Instead of something that I have to suffer through, I want something so delectable that I’m sad when I run out. It should taste so good that I swish it around in my mouth, enjoying the flavor; not plugging my nose and chugging it as fast as possible. And I won’t sell something that’s gross or barely tolerable. It’s gotta be delightful and that’s what you get with sucralose: the best flavor possible. A meal replacement that doesn’t taste AMAZING isn’t helpful in its intended use.
What about the rat studies showing changes in gut bacteria when exposed to sucralose? Humans are not rats. Those rats weren’t consuming acacia gum. Those rats weren’t on a ketogenic diet. Even more important, is the DOSE that the rats received. The dosage is usually expressed in mg/Kg or how many milligrams of sucralose were given per Kilogram of body weight. In the US, it was estimated (top of page 3) that most people consume 98mg of sucralose per day resulting in a dose of 1.6mg/Kg. In a recent study to determine the effects of sucralose, the rats were given an average of 80.4 mg/kg. Let’s see how that compares to what *you* would get by consuming Keto Chow:
@media (min-width:1024px){#cp_calculatedfieldsf_pform_1{min-height:670px;}}The Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) level for sucralose was set at 5 mg/kg body weight per day (mg/kg/d) (page 10) in the US and 15 mg/kg/d in the EU. So you’d only be close to that using Keto Chow if you do it 3x a day and weigh 100lbs/45kg.
In a study published in May 2021, researchers exposed different bacteria to 3 artificial sweeteners (saccharin, sucralose, and aspartame) in Petri dishes (“in vitro”) and then measured their growth, how they formed colonies, and how effectively they can attack mammal intestinal cells. Of the 3 sweeteners tested, Keto Chow only uses pure sucralose. Saccharin modified bacterial growth and all 3 made it easier for the bacteria to form biofilms and to attack intestinal cells. Again, this was under laboratory conditions, not in living organisms – it also didn’t have the added benefits of acacia gum which are likely to erase all of the potential issues found.
One of the very interesting aspects of the study was the researchers also tested what would happen if a compound (zinc sulfate) that blocks sweet tastes was added. Adding this compound changed how the bacteria reacted, based on my reading of the study, that would indicate that it is sweetness causing many of the changes. If this is indeed the cause, that would likely indicate that ALL sweet substances would similarly affect the bacteria, including: stevia, monk fruit, sugar alcohols (like erythritol, allulose, xylitol, etc…), and regular plain sugar.
Unfortunately, the researchers stopped short of testing the logical next step which would be using “natural” sweeteners (including stevia, monk fruit, and actual sugar) as a control to contrast against, they only tested the 3 artificial sweeteners against no sweetener. Because there isn’t a legitimate control in the experiment, it’s currently not possible to derive any conclusions about whether artificial sweeteners cause substantially different results in humans compared to other sweet compounds. This is one of the reasons why it’s important that you not rely on the “news” version that’s been enhanced with incendiary headlines but actually read the full text of the published papers.
You can view the nutrition facts and ingredients for the different flavors of Keto Chow on this page.
As far as allergens go, Keto Chow contains dairy and may contain peanuts or traces of peanuts.
You CAN do it with just water or almond milk if you have a specific reason for doing that AND you are aware that not using fat will prevent the absorption of certain vitamins (A, D, K) and your Keto Chow will not be as filling, meaning it will just be a snack and not a meal. We generally only recommend doing this if you are doing something specific like a Protein Sparing Modified Fast (PSMF) and only for a short period of time. What we are trying to avoid is people not using fat because they still have the mentality that fat is bad and needs to be avoided. However, it’s not a good idea if you’re trying to do keto. Keto is a high-fat, moderate-protein, and low-carb nutrition plan. It is not low-fat, low-carb.
On keto, you need calories. We don’t recommend having more than a 15% calorie deficit while using Keto Chow. Water, almond milk, and other low-fat/low-calorie items won’t provide sufficient calories. Keto is all about living off fat.
Embrace the fat. Use heavy cream or avocado oil in your Keto Chow and put butter on your steak.
Most of the flavors of Keto Chow provide around 26g of protein per serving. If you’re looking to add additional protein for exercise, hitting a higher macronutrient target, etc. here are some ways to do so:
- You can mix additional low-carb flavored/unflavored protein powder, or collagen powder into your shakes.
- Or you can make some chicken breast, steak, bacon, eggs, etc. and eat it.
The Natural Strawberry uses monk fruit as a sweetener
The Savory Chicken Soup, Creamy Tomato Basil, Spicy Taco Base, Beef Soup Base, and Base Powder contain no sweetener.
The other flavors of Keto Chow use 0.08g (80mg) of pure sucralose. Many confuse sucralose with its brand name, Splenda, which contains maltodextrin as a bulking agent. You won’t find any of that in Keto Chow.
You can read more about Sucralose and its benefits and issues here. We don’t use any other artificial sweeteners (acesulfame potassium, aspartame, saccharin). We also do not use maltitol or any other sugar alcohol.
In May 2018, we removed Nickel and Boron from the vitamin/mineral formulation of Keto Chow. You’ll find this change on the Keto Chow Change Log where we publicly list what we’ve changed in each revision of Keto Chow.
Nickel and Boron both *might* be necessary for good health (see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK222322/#ddd00690), but there are no clear results that can be looked at for absolute certainty.
Why do Nickel and Boron remain on the ingredients list? There is still a chance people could get one of the old bags. We would rather lose a potential customer than expose the allergic to nickel, making them ill. We’ll list it on until ALL of the product we have on-hand has switched to version 2.1.2 or newer.
We have a short video that explains what fats you can use.
I actually did a 100-day experiment where I didn’t eat anything BUT Keto Chow and different kinds of fats. The short version is: I like to use butter the best, then heavy cream. You can also use avocado oil, a little MCT oil, even coconut oil if you mix it the same as butter.
So, based on all that, it’s entirely up to you!
Depending on the flavor, Keto Chow uses either milk protein isolate or beef protein and beef bone broth. You can find the amino acid profiles for those on the Keto Chow nutrition page.
There are nine “essential” amino acids. Meaning, your body can’t synthesize them: phenylalanine, valine, threonine, tryptophan, methionine, leucine, isoleucine, lysine, and histidine. You can find all nine in both protein-types of Keto Chow.
More info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_amino_acid
Keto Chow does not contain rice or soy protein. These tend to have high levels of lead and trigger a proposition 65 cancer warning.
Some flavors of Keto Chow do have plant-based spices, like cinnamon and cocoa powder. They contain enough lead to trigger a “reproductive harm” proposition 65 warning (if you consume 1000 times the amount it can cause birth defects). You can get more details about Keto Chow and heavy metal levels on this page.
Most of our Keto Chow (all of the sweet flavors) uses milk protein isolate. Three of our Savory Soups (Creamy Tomato Basil, Taco Soup Base, and Beef Soup Base) use beef protein and beef bone broth. These are completely dairy-free and suitable for people with milk protein allergies.
If you’re lactose intolerant, we have some customers who can tolerate the milk protein-based flavors when they use these mixing options.
We do also offer our base powder here. It contains all of the vitamins and minerals in Keto Chow minus the protein powder, flavor, and sweetener. That way you can tailor it to your needs.
The primary goal of Keto Chow is very simple: Simply and easily get the best nutrients for humans doing a ketogenic diet. That’s it. All of the decisions we make, so far as to which ingredients we use, derive from that one goal.
The REASON for that most important factor is also equally simple: Our founder (Chris) uses Keto Chow for most of his food (and sometimes ALL for 100 days, seriously!). When the person in charge of formulating the product LIVES for months exclusively on it, they quickly make decisions to better the product’s taste and nutrition. It’s a bit of a selfish thing, but something that we think more companies should try it. This is why we use the forms of vitamins and minerals that are best for humans:
- Vitamin D3 instead of D2
- Vitamin K2 (MK-7 to be specific) instead of K1
- Retinol instead of Beta Carotene (vitamin A)
- Methylated folate instead of Folic Acid for everyone with MTHFR (plus methylated B12)
- Magnesium Malate instead of Magnesium Oxide
- Selenium, and more – you’ll find additional details at https://old.ketochow.xyz/nutrition/
Many of the vitamins are derived from animal sources, from specially bred single-cell organisms, or even synthesized in a laboratory. From our perspective, the specific manner in which an ingredient is made is less relevant than it’s purity and quality. Also, how beneficial that specific form is to humans. Again, that’s what happens when the person formulating it doesn’t want to get a vitamin deficiency.
So the answer to the questions of “Is Keto Chow ‘organic’?” (and we’re talking the common contemporary usage here as opposed to the actual meaning of “contains carbon”) or “Is Keto Chow ‘GMO’ free?” would be: As a whole? No, it’s neither “organic,” nor GMO-free. There are some ingredients in Keto Chow that would qualify for those label claims. However, we aren’t interested in not using the best, most nutritious ingredients we can find to make that claim. It would be a disservice to our customers that rely upon us for the highest quality nutrition possible.
Having products that are “Organic” or “GMO-Free” are very important to many people. Caring about your health is a great thing! Our research directs us to put actionable data and science above philosophy. This, unfortunately, means that if you only purchase “organic” products, this isn’t the best option for you.
The only official statement we can legally give is the disclaimer at the bottom of the Keto Chow site:
The content of this website is not intended for the treatment or prevention of disease, nor as a substitute for medical treatment, nor as an alternative to medical advice. Use of recommendations is at the choice and risk of the reader. If you are on any medication, please consult with your family doctor before starting any new eating plan. Keto Chow is not intended to treat, cure or prevent any disease. Pregnant or breast feeding women should consult their health care professional before consuming.
Take a printout of the nutrition and ingredients to your doctor and have a discussion with them. Not a “sit there and listen to them” but working together to determine what will work for you. To my knowledge, there’s nothing specific to Keto Chow that would be any more detrimental to mother or child than a typical keto diet. The real question to ask is the safety of a keto diet during your pregnancy/nursing. The internet is not the place to make that determination. The only issue we have heard reported is: don’t use MCT oil while nursing. Not that it is bad – it just tends to make babies mad. There are some amazing resources over on https://www.reddit.com/r/KetoBabies/
Keto Chow is likely vegetarian, but it’s decidedly not vegan. There are a few ingredients that pose a problem:
- Keto Chow contains Vitamin D3, derived from lanolin harvested from the coats of sheep. This undergoes steps of chemical transformation to create Vitamin D3. Generally, that makes it not considered suitable for a vegan diet.
- The vitamin K2 contains material derived via fermentation by single-celled microorganisms.
- The protein powder comes from dairy.
- Depending on where you get your Omega 3s, that usually comes from fish oil (though you can get it from algae oil).
To the best of my knowledge, everything else is vegetarian (though decidedly NOT vegan).
Maybe. I don’t really have a clear answer on this one. All of the ingredients (listed below) are at least pareve. Except for the milk protein, which is obviously dairy. The same is true for Halal.
- Protein Powder – Dairy – OUD3-5C9EEBF
- Acacia Gum – Pareve – OUV3-VF0MR80
- Choline L-Bitartrate – Parave, Kosher except for Passover – SK8XW6BMRI0
- Cocoa Powder (for those flavors containing Cocoa) – Kosher including Passover – OUW3-2CD9F3C
- Magnesium Malate – Parve – KFT8V290Q23
- Potassium Chloride – Pareve – OUW3-F9D118B
- Potassium Citrate – Pareve – OUW3-H4RSA9C
- Flavoring – Pareve – OUV3-EAC5BAA
- Sucralose – Pareve – OUV2-6A7E924
- Vitamin pre-mix – Pareve – OUV3-DRXBFVB
Generally, women have a lower Base Metabolic Rate compared to men. If you’re using the keto calculator, then you should already have a good idea of your daily calorie target. That should be the only change you would need to make.
There are other considerations to make on a ketogenic diet as a woman (menstruation and hormone levels can make progress…weird?). The ladies over at https://www.reddit.com/r/xxketo/ have some really good resources and are super nice and helpful. There’s also https://www.reddit.com/r/KetoBabies/ for pregnant and new mothers doing keto.
If you are mixing up Keto Chow with cold water:
In order to get the best TASTE, we recommend you allow your Keto Chow shake to refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, or preferably overnight. Allowing it to sit removes a harsh vitamin/metallic taste (30-45 minutes), and eliminates a lot of the saltiness (2-3 hours). As a result, you improve taste and texture.
Drinking immediately after mixing doesn’t hurt you, or cause you to lose health benefits.
If you are mixing up Keto Chow with warm or hot water:
In this case, all of the stuff is immediately dissolved, you CAN refrigerate it and reheat it later, or just drink it right away.
Whipping cream can work, it just has a lower fat content. Lower fat content means more lactose (sugar) which will make ketosis more difficult. Half-and-half has an even lower fat content and really a lot of sugar that will likely guarantee you won’t achieve ketosis.
Here are the calories and carbohydrate content for a 15ml/1 tablespoon “serving”:
| fat % | calories | carbs | carbs/400 calories | |
| Skim Milk | 0.08 | 5 | 0.76 | 58.35 |
| 2% Milk | 1.98 | 8 | 0.73 | 38.40 |
| Whole Milk | 3.25 | 9 | 0.72 | 31.47 |
| Half-and-half | 11.5 | 20 | 0.65 | 13.13 |
| Light/Table cream | 19.1 | 29 | 0.55 | 7.51 |
| Whipping cream | 30.9 | 44 | 0.44 | 4.05 |
| Heavy whipping cream | 36.1 | 51 | 0.43 | 3.34 |
| Darigold “Classic 40“ | 40.0 | 60 | 0.40 | 2.67 |
| Butter | 81.1 | 102 | 0.01 | 0.03 |
Interestingly enough, all of the creams have less than 1g of carbs per “serving” so the package will say “0g total carbs” – even though the half-and-half has nearly 4x as many carbs per calorie compared to heavy cream. You have to muck around the USDA food database to get accurate nutrition information.
There are several key differences between 1.5 (the version you can make yourself) and 2.0+. Some are also differences from 1.5 to 1.9.
- A custom-made vitamin and mineral pre-mix. This replaces several ingredients (the vitamin pill, Calcium Phosphate, Vitamin K, Choline L-Bitartrate, Calcium/Magnesium Citrate, Vitamin D3). There’s also more Magnesium. Other vitamins and minerals have also been adjusted above minimum levels to optimal levels, and optimal forms for bioavailability.
- Additional Potassium to comply with the new US dietary requirements.
- Better Magnesium source that makes is a lot easier on digestion.
- Protein Isolate which has significantly lower carbohydrates compared to the concentrate/isolate/hydrolyzed protein blend used in 0.7-1.9. Most flavors are only 0.56g net carbs before adding any heavy cream.
- Custom made flavors. Earlier versions used off-the-shelf protein powder with flavoring. Using our own makes the flavors more stable and lowers the cost.
- Eliminated 2 sweeteners: AceK and Stevia
- Mixed and packaged in a different facility. All of the flavors (except Chocolate Peanut Butter) are now completely peanut-free and safe for people with peanut allergies.
It’s a bit of an involved subject, but here’s the short version.
We don’t recommend having a caloric deficit higher than 15% off your BMR. For example, if you need 1875 calories a day, you need at least 85% of that from food (1593 calories). If you go lower than that, you risk crashing your metabolism and going into starvation mode. This will stall ketosis, and it’s subsequent fat. Our bodies are smart and know to reduce output when faced with too large of a deficit.
If you dive deeper into the science of it, you’ll also run into issues of high fasting insulin that keeps fat cells from releasing energy, even with low glucose levels. Thus you end up with no glucose, no fat, and no ketones to run your cells and everything slows down.
Keto Chow is designed to provide 1/3 of what your body needs in every serving, including sodium. Unless you have a rare, specific medical condition, it will not negatively affect you.
Interestingly enough, the recommendation that people limit their salt intake isn’t based on good science. New data and studies show that you’re more likely to encounter problems from consuming too little salt! There’s a lot more data about all of this on these sites:
- https://www.dietdoctor.com/the-truth-about-salt
- https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180809202057.htm
- https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)30467-6/fulltext
- https://www.acsh.org/news/2018/08/10/spoonful-salt-makes-blood-pressure-go-down-13289
- http://2ketodudes.com/show.aspx?episode=71
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lpH06ely7E
Above all, on a keto diet, you need a LOT of sodium. Failure to get sufficient salt will leave you with an electrolyte deficiency commonly referred to as “keto flu.” Many find they feel their best by adding sodium above and beyond what Keto Chow has.
First things first, you need to understand how the Glycemic Index is measured in foods:
GI values of foods must be measured using valid scientific methods.It cannot be guessed by looking at the composition of the food or the nutrition information panel on food packaging.
Following the international standardmethod, the GI value of a food is determined by feeding 10 or more healthy people a portion of the food containing 50 grams of digestible (available) carbohydrate and then measuring the effect on their blood glucose levels over the next two hours. For each person, the area under their two-hour blood glucose response (glucose AUC) for this food is then measured. On another occasion, the same 10 people consume an equal-carbohydrate portion of the sugar glucose (the reference food) and their two-hour blood glucose response is also measured. A GI value for the test food is then calculated for each person by dividing their glucose AUC for the test food by their glucose AUC for the reference food. The final GI value for the test food is the average GI value for the 10 people.
Foods with a high GI score contain rapidly digested carbohydrate, which produces a large rapid rise and fall in the level of blood glucose. In contrast, foods with a low GI score contain slowly digested carbohydrate, which produces a gradual, relatively low rise in the level of blood glucose.
OK, so we give 10 people a portion of food containing 50g of digestible carbohydrates. Depending on the flavor of Keto Chow, that varies. Let’s use Salted Caramel for the following illustration. Each 44.8g serving of Salted Caramel Keto Chow has 0.50g of non-fiber carbohydrates. That means we would need to give our test subjects exactly 100 servings of Keto Chow to get the 50g. Each of the 10 participants in the study would need to consume 4.480 kg (9.87 pounds) of powder, equaling 11,800 calories, mostly of protein. In a liquid form, mixed with half a stick of butter per serving, you would need the same 100 servings but you would now be consuming 55,000 calories with a volume of 15.6 gallons.
Because our product is designed for a ketogenic diet, the standard method for measuring the Glycemic Index doesn’t actually even work! We would need to give people such an absurdly large quantity of Keto Chow – I’m sure it would be deemed unethical. Calculating the Glycemic Load needs the Glycemic Index. With both figures, it can reasonably be said that they are below the measurable threshold.
Keto Chow (prior to version 2.0.2) contained soy lecithin. However, that has been replaced with sunflower lecithin, so Keto Chow no longer contains any soy ingredients.
Some simple math will solve this dilemma. Take your daily calorie target and divide it by two. You can then use our How To Chow graphic. This will help you determine how much fat you need for half of your daily calories in one shake.
The aim of Keto Chow is to be nutritionally complete with 1/3 of ALL your nutritional requirements. This includes vitamins, electrolytes, protein, fat, fiber…ALL of it.
Keto//OS is a mixture of exogenous ketones. You drink it and you’ll have ketones in your body regardless of actually being in nutritional ketosis or not. For people doing keto to treat a disease like epilepsy, cancer, or Alzheimer’s; or for people doing elite-level athletics – exogenous ketones can be very useful. For most of us, they’re of limited use. You’re not “in ketosis” unless your body is producing ketones by itself. If you do want to use exogenous ketones, I would recommend checking out Perfect Keto or other products not sold via Multi-Level Marketing.
If you’re curious, I’ve compiled a comparison of the various Keto “Meal Replacement” products available: https://www.reddit.com/r/keto/comments/6wjthf/comparison_of_keto_meal_replacement_options_costs/
Keto Chow is at the top with a cost of around $11 per 2000 calories. Keto//OS is at the very bottom at $250.00 for 2000 calories.
There is a more in-depth analysis of the different options on https://old.ketochow.xyz/2018/10/comparison-of-keto-meal-replacement-nutrition-costs-net-carbs-fat-and-more/
Keto Chow does not contain resistant starch. It is interesting for a ketogenic diet, but the acacia gum in Keto Chow meets many of the benefits.
Starting with version 2.5.2 of Keto Chow (full changelog here), we switched to using Redmond Real Salt in Keto Chow.
- Real Salt tastes better than typical table salt.
- Real Salt is mined in Utah, just a few hours away from Keto Chow HQ.
- Real Salt has a lot of cool trace minerals that add to the flavor.
- …but Real Salt has a lot of cool trace minerals. Some of that shows up like sand at the bottom of your container.
So, lots of pros, with that one con. Most people will notice the bit of reddish “sand” at the bottom of the bottle and it’s not a big deal, but if you have a thicker viscosity (either you use less water, use heavy cream instead of butter, or you thicken the shake using a bit of gelatin/guar gum/xanthan gum) or take a drink IMMEDIATELY after shaking up your Keto Chow, you may get some of those un-dissolved minerals in your mouth. It’s harmless (actually it has some added iron and some manganese which your stomach acid will dissolve) but can be annoying to some people.
To mitigate the issue:
- Wait a minute after shaking up Keto Chow before drinking. Around here we tend to habitually give it a shake before taking a swig. However, that’s really not necessary since Keto Chow doesn’t settle or separate like most drinks (again: habit!) You’ll see the minerals settle to the bottom pretty quickly.
- If you tip the bottle back to get the last few drops, depending on how quickly you tip it and at how much of an angle, you may get a large quantity of the minerals. We notice this happens a lot when we dump a Keto Chow into an ice cream maker to whip up some soft-serve. The fix is to take a few more seconds to slowly pour the bottle.
Keto Chow is certified as gluten-free.
Since wheat is not good for ketosis, nothing in the mixture contains wheat (or corn, or rice, or any carb source). All of the ingredients used in Keto Chow are certified gluten-free. The facility we use for packaging is gluten-free as well.
The different flavors of Keto Chow have various ingredients for flavoring, here are some of the major allergens and which (if any) flavors have them.
Gluten and wheat
- All flavors of Keto Chow are gluten-free and wheat-free.
Soy
- All flavors of Keto Chow are soy-free.
Peanuts
- Chocolate Peanut Butter
Nutmeg
- Eggnog
- Pumpkin Spice Caramel
Tree Nuts (almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, brazil nuts, cashews, pecans, pistachios and macadamia nuts, etc…)
- Aside from nutmeg, all flavors of Keto Chow are tree nut-free.
Dairy
- All but 4 flavors HAVE dairy proteins, the dairy-free flavors are: Base Powder, Creamy Tomato Basil, Spicy Taco Soup Base, Beef Soup Base.
Eggs
- Eggnog
Fish
- All flavors of Keto Chow are fish-free.
Lupin
- All flavors of Keto Chow are lupin-free.
Shellfish and Mollusks
- All flavors of Keto Chow are shellfish-free.
Sesame
- All flavors of Keto Chow are sesame-free.
In the simplest terms, a “natural” ingredient means it is derived from something found in nature. That could be something like the red from beets or orange from carrots, but it would also cover poisonous and dangerous compounds from other sources. “Natural” does not mean “better” it’s simply a way to designate the origin. An “artificial” ingredient means that it’s created by combining compounds together. By the strictest definition, you can create “artificial” water and carbon dioxide in a lab using oxygen, heat, and fuel to make fire.
As far as Keto Chow goes, here are the colorings that are used in various flavors. Several of the different flavors of Keto Chow contain no coloring at all:
- Savory Chicken Soup
- Spicy Taco Soup Base
- Creamy Tomat Basil
- Beef Soup Base
- Chocolate
- Chocolate Peanut Butter
- Cookies and Cream
- Snickerdoodle
- Vanilla
- S’mores
- Mocha
Raspberry Cheesecake has 0.4g of beet extract and 0.04g of Elderberry extract – these are what would be called “natural” colors and they fade to a greyish purple over the course of a few hours. Strawberry and Natural Strawberry use 0.2g of the same beet extract, which does still fade but without the purple from the missing Elderberry coloring.
Banana uses 0.03g of Tumeric. The same color system is used for Lemon Meringue.
Eggnog has 0.035g of beta carotene, it comes from carrots and tints Doritos the orange color you’re familiar with. Although technically it’s a source of an inferior source of vitamin A, we don’t declare that on the nutrition panel because humans don’t convert beta carotene to retinol (true vitamin A) at a very efficient rate.
Chocolate Mint has 0.06g of GNT Blue and 0.04g of Colorcon Green. Pistachio has the same coloring blend.
Pumpkin Spice Caramel uses 0.4g of beta carotene, as well as 0.275g of caramel color. There is 0.4g of Caramel color in Salted Caramel, 0.537g in the Chocolate Toffee, and 0.538g in Root Beer Float.
Orange cream has 0.4g of beta carotene, 0.025g of “Orange Blend N”, and 0.022g of Dye Lake Blend 1488.
To quote Wikipedia: “A lake pigment is a pigment made by precipitating a dye with an inert binder, or ‘mordant’, usually a metallic salt. Unlike vermilion, ultramarine, and other pigments made from ground minerals, lake pigments are organic.”
The simple way of thinking of pigments are they’re ground up minerals, whilst dyes are extracts of organic compounds, often plants or synthetic organic compounds.
No. The Banana flavor uses 100% artificial flavoring. Similar to banana-flavored Runt candy or Laffy Taffy, for example.
Currently, Mocha is the only flavor of Keto Chow with added caffeine (95mg). It also contains instant coffee powder and cocoa powder. In total, Mocha contains approximately 110mg of caffeine per serving.
Here is a breakdown of the other Keto Chow flavors that contain trace amounts of caffeine:
- Chocolate and Chocolate Peanut Butter contain 4g of cocoa powder per serving. At 2.3mg of caffeine per gram of cocoa, there is approximately 9.2mg of caffeine per serving.
- Chocolate Mint contains 1.5g of cocoa powder per serving. At 2.3mg of caffeine per gram of cocoa, there is approximately 3.45mg of caffeine per serving.
No other flavors of Keto Chow contain ingredients with caffeine (Chocolate Toffee does not contain any cocoa powder). Caramel Macchiato does not contain any coffee nor contains any caffeine, it only has flavoring.
The number of calories in each meal depends on the amount of fat you add. Use the How to Chow graphic below as a guide for measuring with heavy whipping cream, butter, or avocado oil. You can also check out the Custom Calorie Calculator, and our preparation instructions page.
Yes! Time-restricted eating is another name for intermittent fasting. You limit your mealtimes to fall within a designated window, and fast outside that window. You can use Keto Chow as a meal replacement during one (or more) of your scheduled meals.
We mix and package Keto Chow in a peanut-free facility. We mix and package the Chocolate Peanut Butter flavor at a facility several miles away to avoid contamination. Therefore, Keto Chow is safe for peanut allergy sufferers (except for the Chocolate Peanut Butter).
Keto Chow is an ultra-low-carb meal replacement shake mix, to help you maintain nutritional ketosis. Combine it with a fat source of your choice (heavy cream, butter, oil) and water. One shake provides a third of your daily vitamins, minerals, fiber, protein, electrolytes and more. It creates a meal replacement that is nutritionally complete.
People usually compare it to a “melted milkshake” though you can go full-on “frosty” by blending with ice or mixing in an ice cream maker.
Keto Chow Preparation
One serving of the Keto Chow dry powder and contains less than 1g of fat and 26g of protein, and can therefore be used in conjunction with a Protein-Sparing Modified Fast. However, be aware that omitting fat will prevent the absorption of certain vitamins (A, D, K), and your Keto Chow will not be as filling.
We recommend mixing your Keto Chow with 10g of fat minimum to gain the full nutritional benefit of Keto Chow. Check out our walkthrough on using the Calorie Calculator to customize Keto Chow to fit your specific requirements.
Many people mix Keto Chow with heavy cream as the fat source. Heavy cream is comparatively low in lactose for the number of calories it contains. If you mix Keto Chow with 4oz of heavy cream, you’ll end up with 3.27g of lactose (roughly comparable to 2.4oz of whole milk). Many people who have problems with lactose are able to handle the relatively small amounts in Keto Chow without problems, or by using a lactase enzyme supplement. See this post for details.
If you want to eliminate heavy cream, there are options you can try. However, some will require a lot of calculations. I recommend using a tracking app like Cron-O-Meter to determine how the alternatives will impact your net carbs and other nutrients. Anyway, here are some possibilities you can try:
- Butter or clarified butter/ghee (using the mixing directions on this page)
- Coconut oil (using the mixing directions for butter above)
- Avocado oil
- Coconut cream
- A little MCT oil
- Avocados (blender required)
- One Keto Chow user uses 1/2 avocado, 1 tsp MCT oil, and 1 tsp olive oil per shake
If you want to eliminate dairy entirely, we do have several options for you here.
You CAN do it with just water or almond milk if you have a specific reason for doing that AND you are aware that not using fat will prevent the absorption of certain vitamins (A, D, K) and your Keto Chow will not be as filling, meaning it will just be a snack and not a meal. We generally only recommend doing this if you are doing something specific like a Protein Sparing Modified Fast (PSMF) and only for a short period of time. What we are trying to avoid is people not using fat because they still have the mentality that fat is bad and needs to be avoided. However, it’s not a good idea if you’re trying to do keto. Keto is a high-fat, moderate-protein, and low-carb nutrition plan. It is not low-fat, low-carb.
On keto, you need calories. We don’t recommend having more than a 15% calorie deficit while using Keto Chow. Water, almond milk, and other low-fat/low-calorie items won’t provide sufficient calories. Keto is all about living off fat.
Embrace the fat. Use heavy cream or avocado oil in your Keto Chow and put butter on your steak.
This depends on how much you added.
If you’ve added twice as much as you should, try adding more Keto Chow and water, enough for two servings. Otherwise, just add less in a subsequent meal to account for the overage.
We have a short video that explains what fats you can use.
I actually did a 100-day experiment where I didn’t eat anything BUT Keto Chow and different kinds of fats. The short version is: I like to use butter the best, then heavy cream. You can also use avocado oil, a little MCT oil, even coconut oil if you mix it the same as butter.
So, based on all that, it’s entirely up to you!
MCT oil is cool stuff for a ketogenic diet. Your liver will convert it almost directly into ketones. This can give you an energy boost or more “keto clarity” – the enhanced mental state that accompanies deep ketosis. The extra ketones can also help get you into ketosis faster and potentially raise your tolerance for carbs. However, MCT oil does not directly help with weight loss. It’s more of an added bonus if you’re already in ketosis.
MCT oil can also cause…” the runs.” Take more than your body likes and you will spend a lot of time on the toilet. Starting a ketogenic diet can often mess with bowels anyway. Therefore, we do not recommend using MCT oil when starting Keto or Keto Chow, specifically. If you’ve been doing keto chow for a while then you can start incorporating MCT oil if you like. Most people can’t handle more than 40ml a day even after doing keto for years.
Versions prior to Keto Chow 1.9 had instructions to use MCT oil. You may still find traces of that on the blog and other locations.
Another issue with MCT oil is that it tends to cause problems with the lipid system (lipoproteins and triglycerides, etc.). This was actually one of the things that Chris tested in the 100 Days of Keto Chow experiment. When he introduced MCT oil, it lowered HDL (bad) and raised triglycerides (also bad). The full analysis of the experiment with graphs and data can be found here.
The best available option we have for this is the Keto Chow Base Powder. It contains all of the vitamins and minerals in Keto Chow minus the protein powder, flavor, and sweetener. This allows you to choose your own protein powder, and tailor it to your preferences. It also costs a lot less to ship since it’s 20% smaller than a 21-meal bag.
If you are mixing up Keto Chow with cold water:
In order to get the best TASTE, we recommend you allow your Keto Chow shake to refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, or preferably overnight. Allowing it to sit removes a harsh vitamin/metallic taste (30-45 minutes), and eliminates a lot of the saltiness (2-3 hours). As a result, you improve taste and texture.
Drinking immediately after mixing doesn’t hurt you, or cause you to lose health benefits.
If you are mixing up Keto Chow with warm or hot water:
In this case, all of the stuff is immediately dissolved, you CAN refrigerate it and reheat it later, or just drink it right away.
Whipping cream can work, it just has a lower fat content. Lower fat content means more lactose (sugar) which will make ketosis more difficult. Half-and-half has an even lower fat content and really a lot of sugar that will likely guarantee you won’t achieve ketosis.
Here are the calories and carbohydrate content for a 15ml/1 tablespoon “serving”:
| fat % | calories | carbs | carbs/400 calories | |
| Skim Milk | 0.08 | 5 | 0.76 | 58.35 |
| 2% Milk | 1.98 | 8 | 0.73 | 38.40 |
| Whole Milk | 3.25 | 9 | 0.72 | 31.47 |
| Half-and-half | 11.5 | 20 | 0.65 | 13.13 |
| Light/Table cream | 19.1 | 29 | 0.55 | 7.51 |
| Whipping cream | 30.9 | 44 | 0.44 | 4.05 |
| Heavy whipping cream | 36.1 | 51 | 0.43 | 3.34 |
| Darigold “Classic 40“ | 40.0 | 60 | 0.40 | 2.67 |
| Butter | 81.1 | 102 | 0.01 | 0.03 |
Interestingly enough, all of the creams have less than 1g of carbs per “serving” so the package will say “0g total carbs” – even though the half-and-half has nearly 4x as many carbs per calorie compared to heavy cream. You have to muck around the USDA food database to get accurate nutrition information.
This depends on the fat source you choose, and how fresh your fat source is. With heavy cream, a fresh package will keep Keto Chow good for six days before it starts to get weird. With butter or oil, they can last even longer.
Generally, I try to keep mine for 4-5 days at the most.
We often drink Keto Chow warm, and also frequently use it in cooking and baking. Even the Savory Soups are meant to be consumed hot/warm.
Once Keto Chow reaches 120 degrees F and above, some of the nutrients may start to deteriorate. Even when it reaches that temperature, you will still receive excellent nutritional value. However, you would not want it to be your sole source of nutrition if you consistently heat it above 120 degrees.
It’s a bit of an involved subject, but here’s the short version.
We don’t recommend having a caloric deficit higher than 15% off your BMR. For example, if you need 1875 calories a day, you need at least 85% of that from food (1593 calories). If you go lower than that, you risk crashing your metabolism and going into starvation mode. This will stall ketosis, and it’s subsequent fat. Our bodies are smart and know to reduce output when faced with too large of a deficit.
If you dive deeper into the science of it, you’ll also run into issues of high fasting insulin that keeps fat cells from releasing energy, even with low glucose levels. Thus you end up with no glucose, no fat, and no ketones to run your cells and everything slows down.
All 21-meal bags of Keto Chow include a scoop for quick and easy measuring.
Depending on how you pack the scoop, it can come up short of a full serving by 2% or more. If you have a kitchen scale, we recommend using that for higher accuracy. This helps especially if you are tracking your food intake via Cron-O-Meter, MyFitnessPal, etc.
Some simple math will solve this dilemma. Take your daily calorie target and divide it by two. You can then use our How To Chow graphic. This will help you determine how much fat you need for half of your daily calories in one shake.
On the Keto Chow instructions, it says to add 14 fl oz (or more) of water. Most like the taste and thickness when the total mixture is around 20 fl oz. or a nearly full Blender Bottle.
If you want to use MCT Oil (which is completely optional and not recommended if you’re just starting), you can use liquid oil or take capsules. However, the capsules are far more expensive.
Starting with version 2.5.2 of Keto Chow (full changelog here), we switched to using Redmond Real Salt in Keto Chow.
- Real Salt tastes better than typical table salt.
- Real Salt is mined in Utah, just a few hours away from Keto Chow HQ.
- Real Salt has a lot of cool trace minerals that add to the flavor.
- …but Real Salt has a lot of cool trace minerals. Some of that shows up like sand at the bottom of your container.
So, lots of pros, with that one con. Most people will notice the bit of reddish “sand” at the bottom of the bottle and it’s not a big deal, but if you have a thicker viscosity (either you use less water, use heavy cream instead of butter, or you thicken the shake using a bit of gelatin/guar gum/xanthan gum) or take a drink IMMEDIATELY after shaking up your Keto Chow, you may get some of those un-dissolved minerals in your mouth. It’s harmless (actually it has some added iron and some manganese which your stomach acid will dissolve) but can be annoying to some people.
To mitigate the issue:
- Wait a minute after shaking up Keto Chow before drinking. Around here we tend to habitually give it a shake before taking a swig. However, that’s really not necessary since Keto Chow doesn’t settle or separate like most drinks (again: habit!) You’ll see the minerals settle to the bottom pretty quickly.
- If you tip the bottle back to get the last few drops, depending on how quickly you tip it and at how much of an angle, you may get a large quantity of the minerals. We notice this happens a lot when we dump a Keto Chow into an ice cream maker to whip up some soft-serve. The fix is to take a few more seconds to slowly pour the bottle.
Chocolate Peanut Butter is simply the Chocolate flavor with added high-fat peanut flour. That adds to the mass and volume of the serving size. Therefore, the scoop is larger.
Absolutely! Keto Chow will work for any recipe you find that calls for protein powder. It’s a great substitute! In fact, we have an entire section of the blog dedicated to recipes that use Keto Chow as an ingredient.
The shelf life of unopened Keto Chow is 2 years with no detectable change to the flavor or nutrition. You can read more about the accelerated shelf-life testing on our website. Each package has a “best by” date printed on the package that lets you know how long it will last.
The primary factor determining how long an opened bag of Keto Chow will last is humidity. If you live in an arid climate, you may have bags that are still fresh and tasty after 4-5 months. If you live in humidity, the powder may get clumpy and spoil after only a few days.
There are a few things you can do to combat the humidity:
- Use desiccant packets (the “DO NOT EAT” things you find in stuff)
- Store your bags in the freezer, not to keep them cold but because freezers tend to be crazy low humidity, and the cold doesn’t hurt either
- Get smaller bags or split up the large bag into smaller bags
That’s the Vitamin A, encapsulated to keep it from oxidizing. After mixing, the capsule dissolves and releases the vitamins, resulting in red-colored streaks within the mixture. It’s completely safe and will go away with a quick shake.
Keto Chow is an ultra-low-carb meal replacement shake mix, to help you maintain nutritional ketosis. Combine it with a fat source of your choice (heavy cream, butter, oil) and water. One shake provides a third of your daily vitamins, minerals, fiber, protein, electrolytes and more. It creates a meal replacement that is nutritionally complete.
People usually compare it to a “melted milkshake” though you can go full-on “frosty” by blending with ice or mixing in an ice cream maker.
We have some great preparation and mixing resources on our website. There are many ways to use Keto Chow:
- Mix it up one meal at a time in blender bottles.
- Prepare a couple of meals in a blender (try adding ice!).
- Make multiple meals at a time in a gallon size pitcher with an immersion blender.
- Use it in a recipe
- Turn it up a notch using our awesome flavor hacks!
Keto in General
I’m going to steal this one right from the /r/keto FAQ:
All foods containing fat – even pure oils – contain a mixture of three kinds of fat:
- saturated
- polyunsaturated, and
- monounsaturated.
We often identify foods by their predominant fat. For example, olive oil as “monounsaturated” butter as “saturated” – but all real foods contain mixtures of the three.
All three types of fats are necessary and important to human health. We should incoporate them into our diet in a balanced proportion. That’s the big question: What is balanced?
- Saturated fat, particularly in the absence of high carbohydrate intake, is not dangerous to human health. When balanced with mono and polyunsaturated fats in a controlled carbohydrate dietary environment, saturated fat has real and measurable benefits. You quickly oxidize saturated fat into energy, once you are keto adapted. So you can enjoy plenty of butter and animal fat guilt-free. Interestingly, coconut oil is something very different: it consists of Medium Chain Triglycerids (MCT) which your body cannot store. It has to immediately oxidize it. That means your body will immediately produce ketones, even when you are not keto-adapted. Nevertheless, this does not mean you’re getting all the metabolic advantages that you would get in a keto-adapted state.
- Monounsaturated fats (like olive oil) have well-known and well-documented benefits.
- Polyunsaturated fats, like vegetable oils, usually contain a lot of omega-6 and very little omega-3. The ideal ratio between omega-6 to omega-3 is 2:1 to 1:1. Generally, this ratio is often 20:1 or even worse. It is therefore important to avoid oils high in omega-6, like corn or soy. Vegetable oils rich in omega-3 contains it in the form of ALA which the body has to convert to DHA and EPA to be of any use. This conversion is highly inefficient. Therefore, ALA omega-3 rich vegetable oils like flaxseed oil or canola are no good either. The best way to get omega-3 is through fatty fish like salmon, or with a DHA + EPA supplement.
As a general rule of thumb, avoid fats high in omega-6. Also, run like hell from highly processed fat (anything that says “hardened” or contains trans-fats) like margarine. Eat foods naturally high in fat like meat, fish, and nuts; use plenty of olive oil and butter. In fact, 50% butter with 50% olive oil approximates quite closely the composition of body fat. Meaning, this is the type of fat that the body can make best use off.
Ordering
We haven’t yet made an announcement about the availability of that flavor in that size. Because of the MANY factors beyond our control that determine when stuff will actually be available we simply do not make any announcements about if, or when, different flavors will be coming until they have actually arrived at our warehouse and have been quality tested. Introducing new flavors and new sizes of limited edition flavors is a months-long process dependant on the schedules of many outside groups. We could anticipate that something will take 2 months and it will actually take 9 months, or it may only take 3 weeks.
When it’s ready, we WILL let you know!
We want you to be happy with Keto Chow. We love it and think you’ll love it too. However, we realize that isn’t always the case.
You can find information on Keto Chow’s return policy here.
Chocolate is, by far, the most popular flavor.
Every so often, we publish a list of our online best sellers on our blog. You can view the most current leaderboard of our most popular flavors here.
The cost for international shipping is a direct relation to how much the US Postal Service (USPS) charges for shipping their Flat Rate packages. We’ve looked into UPS, FedEx, and DHL for international shipments and have encountered several problems:
- The recipient was liable to pay for the brokerage fees and customs duties when using a carrier other than USPS.
- Keto Chow does weigh quite a bit, and it’s quite large physically. That makes for an expensive “cubic weight” shipping fees. Using flat-rate boxes reduces that greatly.
- All of the other carriers I’ve looked into charge more for international shipping compared to USPS.
The solution to many of these is to branch out with local international distributors. We’ve started with Canada, and seen some success. If you know of any importers or distributors in your region, contact us with their information. We’d be happy to reach out to them.
In the meantime, check out our Base Powder, designed for international customers who want to save on shipping. It has everything but the protein (the #1 ingredient by weight and volume), flavor, and sweetener. I have some additional details and info about the Base Powder on this page. When mixed with the right amount of protein powder, you’ll end up with 21 meals of Keto Chow.
We make just 2 sizes of Keto Chow:
- Individual Meals – great for sampling the different flavor options that are available. We also have these in several pre-made bundles of specific flavors. They cost around $4.75 per meal.
- Single-Flavor, 21-meal Bulk Bags – designed to be efficient and inexpensive. Once you’ve tried the different flavors and found what you like, these give you the most cost-effective way to order. They cost around $3.33 per meal.
We don’t make any other sizes, there isn’t a 3-meal pack or a 10-meal pack. Adding more sizes complicates the product, and would raise the price of Keto Chow. We do have what we call the “Go Pack” with 21 single meal packets of the same flavor. It’s only available in certain flavors and only for a limited time. It is more expensive than the Single-Flavor, 21-meal Bulk Bag due to the cost of packaging, but it does represent a 15% saving over getting the single meal packets individually.
Want more variety? You can buy several different flavors of the individual meals (which is more expensive), or the larger 21-meal bags and pull from all of them as desired. This costs more up-front, but so would purchasing 21 full meals of any food. Especially one that’s so densely packed with nutrition.
The “monthly” part of the subscription refers to the frequency of your order. It’s not how many meals you’re getting.
An interesting note: The subscription management tool allows you to customize the delivery schedule by Days, Weeks, or Months. As a result, you can completely customize your subscription to your personal needs.
Beginning in January 2020, Keto Chow launched its Loyalty Rewards Program. This allows customers to earn points on purchases, referrals, or by sharing Keto Chow on social media.
To refer a friend: simply log into your Keto Chow account dashboard, click Earn Points, and then Refer a Friend. It’ll provide a link to send to your family and friends. Once they follow the link, create an account, and complete their first purchase with Keto Chow, you’ll receive 2000 points to your rewards account.
When you create a subscription, you will get an email with a link to your personal subscription management page. Every month before the subscription renews, you’ll get a new email reminding you about the subscription. It also includes a link to the subscription management page. You can also log into your account on the Keto Chow store and access the subscriptions from there.
An important note when you visit the subscription page is that the list of subscriptions scrolls left to right. As shown in the image below, you tap inside the list of subscriptions and drag over to the left…
and BOOM, now you can see the Edit and Cancel links!
Once you are in the edit screen you’ll see the multitude of different options available for editing your subscription. You can change the flavors, delivery schedule, payment method, or even cancel the subscription entirely if you would like.
The first time you visit the Keto Chow site using a browser that supports notifications, you’ll get a prompt to allow notifications. Looks like this in Firefox:
And it looks like this in Chrome:
The Notifications in Chrome look like this. They’ll show up whenever a new blog post goes up on the site:
If you want to stop them, it’s super easy and you can do it in several ways. In Chrome, you can click on the little gear that’s right by the close button on the notification. That’ll take you to chrome://settings/content/notifications where you can remove or block notifications from specific sites:
You can also click on the “Secure” lock immediately to the left of the address bar, and remove notifications for the specific site you’re on:
The instructions for Chrome on mobile devices has you doing the same things.
To remove notifications for a site in Firefox just follow these instructions, or just click the gear icon on a notification and turn them off:
And here are the instructions for Safari.
You may have seen our recent blog post regarding our most popular Keto Chow flavors. From the data collected, we’ve determined that some of the flavors don’t sell as well as others. This is especially true for flavors that are more seasonal.
Going forward, we plan to move the 21-meal bags of these flavors into seasonal availability. Once the current inventory of the runs out, we will wait to reintroduce them until they are in season. Orange Cream and Root Beer Float will be available in summertime. Pumpkin Spice Caramel and Eggnog will be available in the fall. The Savory Soups will also be reintroduced in the fall to be available for the cold months of the year. Individual-meal packets as well as Sample Bundles containing these flavors will still be available year-round.
If you are partial to any of these flavors, be sure to stock up and take advantage of the long shelf life of Keto Chow so you won’t run out of your favorite flavors.
The “Flavor of the Week” started as a way to move flavors that we have too much in stock. The first discount was Snickerdoodle because Chris ordered way too much. It’s since become a weekly tradition.
Every weekend, Chris looks at the inventory to see what the stock levels look like. He picks an overabundant flavor and then tries to remember if it’s been on sale recently. He then sets the website to switch to that flavor’s price on Monday at 12:00:01 am MST. It’s super scientific and completely infallible…or not.
We do not have a public schedule of what flavors will be going on sale. Flavors that are extremely popular (like Chocolate and Chocolate Peanut Butter) very seldom go on sale. Frankly, we have to work insanely hard to just keep them in stock. There’s almost rioting in the street every time Chocolate Peanut Butter runs out, even for a few days.
The new online checkout only allows one discount code at a time. Bulk orders use an automatic discount code so you are not able to use two anymore. It’ll default to whichever gives the biggest discount.
The workaround for this shortcoming in Shopify is to add your coupon code to the shopping cart before clicking Check Out. This will combine your coupon code’s discount with the automatic discount code generated by your bulk order.
Here’s the simplest method to redeem points for rewards.
Log in to your Keto Chow account dashboard and click on My Rewards. Select the reward you wish to redeem, and the system will auto-generate a one-time coupon code for you to use. It’ll also email you the code. Add the desired items to your order, and input the code to your shopping cart BEFORE you start the checkout process.
More details with photos here: https://old.ketochow.xyz/keto-chow-rewards-program/
The aim of Keto Chow is to be nutritionally complete with 1/3 of ALL your nutritional requirements. This includes vitamins, electrolytes, protein, fat, fiber…ALL of it.
Keto//OS is a mixture of exogenous ketones. You drink it and you’ll have ketones in your body regardless of actually being in nutritional ketosis or not. For people doing keto to treat a disease like epilepsy, cancer, or Alzheimer’s; or for people doing elite-level athletics – exogenous ketones can be very useful. For most of us, they’re of limited use. You’re not “in ketosis” unless your body is producing ketones by itself. If you do want to use exogenous ketones, I would recommend checking out Perfect Keto or other products not sold via Multi-Level Marketing.
If you’re curious, I’ve compiled a comparison of the various Keto “Meal Replacement” products available: https://www.reddit.com/r/keto/comments/6wjthf/comparison_of_keto_meal_replacement_options_costs/
Keto Chow is at the top with a cost of around $11 per 2000 calories. Keto//OS is at the very bottom at $250.00 for 2000 calories.
There is a more in-depth analysis of the different options on https://old.ketochow.xyz/2018/10/comparison-of-keto-meal-replacement-nutrition-costs-net-carbs-fat-and-more/
Not including the scoops, or having it as a separate item for purchase, is something that gets suggested often. The logistics of having “no scoop, please” as an option would RAISE the cost of Keto Chow.
The scoop costs us $0.05 to have included with every bag. It would initially save a little to not include them. However, accidentally forgetting to include one, then needing to ship one to a customer wipes out any savings. The postage, paying employees, and the rest of the fulfillment process costs money. Most importantly, the delay sucks for the customer.
Including the scoop simplifies the fulfillment process, and saves us far more than the cost of the scoop. This is why you can’t customize sample bundles – they’re pre-made at substantial savings, ready to go right into your order. Simplicity = savings!
Another issue: a loose scoop outside a bag presents something that could puncture the bags of Keto Chow. Suddenly, that 5-cent scoop has destroyed a far more expensive bag that we need to replace. Replacements blow away much of the cost savings and optimizations we’ve put in place. Our amazing, non-robot, actual-human workers would have to perfectly fulfill approximately 2000 orders with no packages damaged in shipping (thanks UPS!) for not including the scoop to be financially beneficial.
So, a long response to a simple question. The short version is: it’s easier and cheaper to include them in each bag. Thanks for the suggestion.
Nope, it’s a one-time shipment. We don’t believe in tricking people into a recurring subscription. If a product is amazing (and we think Keto Chow is), you don’t have to rely on predatory sales practices. People will reorder on their own.
We do have the option of signing up for a subscription on our 21-meal bags, but it’s off by default and really obvious what you are signing up for.
We ship products in standard USPS Flat Rate boxes/envelopes or other shipping-grade parcels. As a result, the package itself doesn’t provide much information. For US shipments, there will be a “Keto Chow Order #Sxxxxx” at the bottom of the shipping label. International shipments will include a customs declaration, so you can determine what’s inside from that.
We declare Keto Chow as protein powder, and Base Powder as acacia gum. These are the primary ingredients in each, respectively. Inside the box, you’ll find a packing slip detailing the items and quantities within.
The Flavor of the Week sale is now using the same discount engine as our other discounts. The discount process will automatically apply the biggest discount available. This means that if you can get 5% off for buying 4 large bags, and 10% off for the Flavor of the Week, the discount applied is 10%. The remaining qualifying items will still get 5% off.
You are still able to apply a Keto Chow Rewards discount code on top of the other sales. You can also use a Military and First Responders discount code (though you can’t use BOTH). Be sure that you are inputting the code you want to use into the box on the SHOPPING CART page (not the checkout page).
The shopping cart has rules to determine shipping costs. If you have too many items in your cart you may get a message telling you stuff can’t be shipped. Please contact us with the details – usually, it’s a bug Chris can easily fix.
We do have the option of signing up for a subscription [on our 21-meal bags](https://www.ketochow.xyz/collections/21-meal-weeks), but it’s off by default and really obvious what you are signing up for. We have a detailed video below that walks you through the process of creating a subscription.
NOTE: Subscription orders operate on a separate sales platform that is not compatible with any other promotions or discounts. These include bulk orders, military/first responder discounts, or rewards program discounts.
Beginning in January 2020, Keto Chow launched its Loyalty Rewards Program. This allows customers to earn points on purchases, referrals, or by sharing Keto Chow on social media.
To refer a friend: simply log into your Keto Chow account dashboard, click Earn Points and then Refer a Friend. It’ll provide a link to send to your family and friends. Once they follow the link, create an account, and complete their first purchase with Keto Chow, you’ll receive 2000 points to your rewards account.
If you wish to have a subscription for Keto Chow and have it available for Local Pickup at the Keto Chow storefront there’s one simple thing you’ll need to do:
Set your shipping address TO the Keto Chow Storefront!
When you put our address in as the shipping address, a new shipping option will appear like MAGIC!
For reference, our address (both for the shipping address and for you to come pick up your order =) is:
12577 s. 265 w. Ste 4A
Draper, UT 84020
You can pick up your order Monday-Friday, 8:00am to 5:00pm
Keto Chow is happy to offer a 5% discount off your order total through GovX ID. This offer is available for all active-duty military, veterans, military families, first responders, and government employees.
To redeem your discount, visit our website at https://www.ketochow.xyz/pages/military-and-other-discounts
Actually, it is! Check out Keto Chow on Amazon to purchase individual samples, sample bundles, 21-meal bags, and electrolyte supplements. In addition, our products are eligible for Prime shipping.
Yes indeed! If you live within about 50 miles of our Draper Facility, you’ll see a Local Pickup option during checkout. If you live further than that and want to make the drive anyway, you can trick the system by using our address as your shipping address!
Keto Chow
12577 S 265 W STE 4A
Draper, UT 84020
We’re open Monday-Friday, 8:00 AM-5:00 PM. We hold local pickup orders for two business weeks.
Check out our shipping info, policies, and other assorted stuff.
Most orders ship via USPS Priority Mail. We also have the option for UPS Ground, 2nd-Day Air, and Next-Day Air.
You can buy Keto Chow online at https://www.ketochow.xyz/products
If you happen to be nearby Draper, UT, feel free to come by our warehouse in person.
Keto Chow
12577 South 265 West, Unit 4A
Draper, UT 84020
We’re open Monday-Friday, 8:00 AM-5:00 PM
Yes. The question we’re asked the most is, “Do you ship to [country] and how much is shipping?” We ship worldwide. Any place the US Postal Service ships. Our shipping charges correspond directly to the USPS rate based on weight, country, and package size. The online checkout will automatically provide shipping costs for whatever is in the cart.
That said, I want to draw your attention to the Keto Chow Base Powder. It’s designed specifically for international shipping and consists of everything in Keto Chow except for the protein, flavor, and sweetener. The result is a much smaller package that costs far less to ship, especially if you order multiple at the same time. You, source protein powder locally.
The credit card verification we use is pretty strict. Since November 2015, we’ve never had a chargeback or fraudulent transaction. Your billing address has to exactly match what your credit card company has on file. If in doubt, pull up your card statement and see where they think you live.
If it fails to verify you might still see an “authorize” transaction on your card. This is from Stripe (our processor) saying:
“Hey, does this person have enough money to cover the charge? Cool, here is their address, does it match what you have? No? OK, never mind.”
If it does match then it does what’s termed a “capture” transaction. This is where they charge your card for realsies.
So the good news is: you aren’t charged for the auth transactions, but they do temporarily count towards your credit limit. After a few days, depending on the bank, the pending charges will drop from your account. If you need it, you can sometimes call the bank and get them to release an auth transaction early.
Got a question that’s not on the list? Go ahead and ask and I’ll add it!
