FAQ’s

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

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.

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.

Keto Chow is likely vegetarian, but it’s decidedly not vegan. There are a few ingredients that pose a problem:

1. 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.
2. The vitamin K2 contains material derived via fermentation by single-celled microorganisms.
3. The protein powder comes from dairy.
4. 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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 (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.

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.

No. The Banana flavor uses 100% artificial flavoring. Similar to banana-flavored Runt candy or Laffy Taffy, for example.

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.

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

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.

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/

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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:

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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, 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.

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/

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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/