Keto Breads - Are there any decent ones?

[Paulene]

Ok. I used 1 cup oat fibre and 2 cups gluten flour, plus an additional 1/2 cup water and only 2 tablespoons of xylitol instead of 4.
Got a larger, lighter textured loaf with slices about the same size as a commercial sandwich loaf. Not as sweet, which is good. Slices are elastic enough to fold over.
I did discover that 1 Australian tablespoon = 15g yeast, not 8g like the recipe says. I used the whole lot anyway since I increased gluten.

[David_Stilley]

I would advise leaving bread substitutes out of your diet. I recommend kicking anything with vital wheat gluten, wheat gluten iso, modified wheat starch, or oat bran to the curb. They may fit your carb allowance but are unhealthy and there’s more to consider than carb count.

If your a man I would avoid seeds and flax meal like the plague. They aren’t so hot for women either as they influence natural estrogen production and lead to hormonal imbalance. They are chock full of phytoestrogens and knock testosterone levels down hard. If you leave bread with these ingredients behind have a chance to change your mindset about eating real food. But that’s me, and what works for me. Changing my concepts to food as fuel and not so pleasure oriented has been a process of adaptation but it works a lot better for me. I don’t miss bread and desert imitations at all. My food bill is way lower and I don’t have anything in my home that you can overeat. It’s just real food and I don’t eat if I’m not hungry because there’s no hyper palatable foods here, just solid single ingredient items that have no temptation unless I am hungry. And I enjoy my food very much anyway. YMMV

[FrankoBear]

I would advise leaving bread substitutes out of your diet.

Ultimately, yes. For all the reasons.

But bread substitutes are exactly that. They are a tool to help break an addiction.

[David_Stilley]

They are a tool to help break an addiction.

Or prolong it maybe?

[Paulene]

But bread substitutes are exactly that. They are a tool to help break an addiction.

Agree. Personally I have no problem leaving bread out of my diet. Dont miss it at all, really. But it is the single thing stopping my husband from trying a low carb / keto WOE. I am sure that after a while on keto he will no longer want bread to the same degree… but he has to get to that point first. So, yes, a low carb bread is a good tool.

[FrankoBear]

Or prolong it maybe?

Yes. Absolutely.

I squirm when I see the forum posts where people discover how to make keto versions of their favourite desserts etc (he says drinking his coffee). But I do understand that those things are so strongly wanted that they feel like they are needed and almost bordering on the essential.

There is a modicum of helpfulness in suggesting that it is best to not eat that ‘substitute’ food at all. But that is what it looks like from the keto-veteran’s side. If one has never lived without that favourite food being available, then it is unbelievable to think that a diet could be sustainable without at least a small portion (in moderation) of it. I reckon there is that huge psychological push-back response against dieting in general that starts with the word ‘restrictive’ and the response “I’m not going to restrict anything”. It’s unresolved diet rebellion. And all that framed in an experience of restricted eating CICO designed diets and their long term trauma and PTSD. Look at all the brave and messed up people in the forum who haven’t given up hope in finding a healthier way to eat the world.

The other problem is that a keto ‘substitute’ food item keeps the eater close to the high carb version that it is replacing, so it’s only a small illogical stumble over a cravings mind fart to end up back on the high carbohydrate foods diet.

So, initially, we, the pioneer generation, have to provide steps or scaffold for beginners. Unfortunately it also opens up a market for keto food products that are still based on the food addiction business model. Eventually people come round to recognising what those processed and packaged foods are despite what they claim.

The big drop in carbohydrate intake to 20g or less is a large enough challenge at the start.

Some people will need mental crutches and shields to maintain that leap as the body and brain starts asking the why? questions, and wondering where it’s regular 3 hourly dopamine and endorphine hits have gone.

There are a trillion screaming internal voices (via the vagus nerve) as the gut biota enters a time of cahange and civil unrest and many of the carb munching bugs die as their food source declines.

Until people experience the fat adaption highs of ketosis and satiety, that are are more than enough compensation for taking away the carbohydrate cascades and avalanche foods, there probably has to be hand holds available.

I’m just going to watch out now for replies that start, “I just like bread”.

maybe, if you feel like replying to this rant, you could do it in the new topic I made? So as not to distract from the keto-bread recipe quest. (link is at bottom of post)

[David_Stilley]

@FrankoBear Maybe I had a bigger motivation starting but I was someone who was a baker and a Chinese cook most of my days. I loved all of it, bread, crackers, cookies, pies, cakes, pasta, rice, deep fried crap… I had been on dialysis 10 years and would be drained after treatments. I couldn’t use dairy because of high potassium and phosphorus and I was hooked on that artificial creamer loaded with soy oil and HFCS. When I got a transplant everything was on the menu again. I kept the fake creamer because I used lots of it and was addicted to the caffeine/sugar rush.I gained 30 lbs in six months and suddenly in one month I went from healthy A1c to diabetic.

The very next day after that diabetes diagnosis I said no F-ing way am I ever going to accept this. Without study I knew the answer had something to do with losing weight. I decided to try Atkins because my dad and uncle lost about 80 lbs each. A week later after reading lots on the internet and solving the keto flu mystery (didn’t know what it was but I googled started Atkins and feel like I am sick and found KETO at that time and took it to heart. Well fixed me up quick. One of the things I found was a recommendation to not eat nuts, berries or fake keto baked goods and focus on real foods that are easy to control. I can’t express how helpful that was. I waited two months for all that and I was past snacking at that point, nuts and berries were nice occasional treats along with some keto baking treats, but those foods had lost most of their appeal and I didn’t binge and pretty much phased them all out soon after. So my motivation was fear of being a full blown T2, not just dropping a few pounds so I didn’t feel like a slob and could be proud of my appearance. So maybe others don’t have that kind of motivation to put the nose to the grindstone and stay true to plan that I did. But I am the kind of guy who does whatever necessary to achieve my goals and not playing with stuff I was advised to avoid was best, abstention as opposed to moderation and not keeping those cravings for crap alive is what was best for me. YMMV

[kyarn]

David_Stilley - Chinese food is my favorite! Do you ever make egg drop soup? I’ve never been good at making Chinese food but I can pull that one off. I also discovered Palmini which is hearts of palm shredded to mimic noodles and I make chow mien with them. Do you have any other Chinese dishes that are Keto friendly you can recommend?

[Shinita]

Or prolong it maybe?

Maybe, for some. When I started to bake keto bread (it was so odd as I was fine without bread for several years but then I got tempted again), it was a good tool to keep me from eating wheat bread sometimes (despite they aren’t really similar but I didn’t actually liked wheat bread so much) but bread actually has a role. I need something to put my Marmite on if I fancy eating that. I need something neutral and dry when I eat stew (but I do that on carnivore so that’s a different, not real bread. my vegetable stew before was fine, I could eat it with vegetables, of course. I ate everything with vegetables except sweets, that’s why sweets were essential to lower my carbs until carnivore. life is so interesting sometimes).
We might have some restrictions where bread helps with satiation or just eating. I usually eat pretty much gluten when I run out of meat nowadays as I see no other options (maybe force feeding eggs? nope, I forced just a tiny bit and I hated eggs for a week and still dislike them in most form). It’s temporal but quite fun as well.
I had my gluten free years, they weren’t any better, I trust the signs of my body (maybe there are some hidden harm, maybe not but I rather risk something as the other option is deliberately causing much physical and emotional suffering to myself - eating much more carbs - and I can’t do that). So it’s the optionally (is it a word?) lesser evil. Or no problem at all. Whatever, I consider it the right decision. I do so much, I can’t avoid everything potentially bad… That would be starving or something else but surely and not just potentially bad.
Don’t misunderstand me, I totally eat even sugary things if I get tempted and those are surely not good for me (but not very bad either if I don’t overdo them. too often). But it sounds a good idea sometimes, everything considered and I almost never have regrets. I eat well enough and it just gets better. If the other parts of my life would be half as good… sigh (But in a perfect situation I don’t get tempted by sugary stuff, I believe that. But reaching that might take a very long time and I don’t believe being strict would make things any quicker, not like it has any reality at all so it’s a moot point anyway.)

What is dessert imitation, by the way? I really don’t get it. I have no imitations but real, good, rich, perfected desserts. Sometimes just skipping the carby part makes something clearly better without disadvantages (after a while, in some cases), it’s my favorite case. It happens with other types of food as well like my favorite sandwich (I only liked one type of sandwich in my life but I loved it a lot). It is way more enjoyable without any kind of bread, hands down.

[David_Stilley]

@Shinita My just deserts are my good health and progress. I have no need of pleasure eating. By fake deserts I meant KETO concoctions that imitate cakes, cookies, ice creams an things like that, they are much more entertainment of your sweet tooth than real nutrition. It’s all about changing mind set and what I expect from eating and not entertaining myself with eating and “rewarding” myself with food.

There’s a saying that floats around the forum from some older more wise KETO person than myself,

“You’re not a dog, quit treating yourself with food!”

I took that to heart because it was profound to me after a lifetime of treating myself like a hungry, greedy dog. I prefer logical eating over emotional crutches.

[David_Stilley]

I’ve never done Whole 30 but I think that’s their logic, breaking free of food addiction with behavior modification forcing a different experience than we’ve previously had with food.

[David_Stilley]

@kyarn I absolutely love the hell out of Chinese Food and I spent many many years working and learning how to cook it at a pretty high level of Chinese cuisine that most people never experienced. I traveled in China three months to study the food. As far as ordering out pretty much anything you get from a restaurant is very compromised and not Ketogenic in the very biggest stretch of imagination . It virtually all has cornstarch, vegetable oil, and god awful amounts of sugar even if it doesn’t taste particularly sweet. I can take a few traditional dishes and modify the recipe enough to be KETO and I never eat in Chinese restaurants now because I have the knowledge. I CANNOT RECOMMEND A SINGLE SAFE THING YOU CAN GET AT A CHINESE RESTAURANT, so look at anything from one as an off plan meal rolling the dice on just how many carbs and bad oils are in that meat and vegetable dish.

[Shinita]

I am clearly way different My food must be enjoyable, I definitely optimize for joy when it’s about my food (not the short time one, getting unwell or unhealthy is definitely not enjoyable so health is included, it’s actually more important than joy but as I easily can have both, I don’t choose)! It’s my hedonist core and I doubt it will change and it’s very well this way.
It has nothing to do with being a dog, in the contrary, I am not obedient, I am a hedonistic cat who prefers to do whatever they want

It’s quite fine we humans have very different attitudes, it makes life more enjoyable, actually.

I’ve read about whole 30, if that was true then it’s something totally opposite with me. If I call my omelet a pancake or a pizza, it suddenly becomes bad food? Right, sure. They probably don’t like roleplaying either… I accept some people need strictness or some different attitude but not everyone.

(Actually, I am a very good hedonist food wise, that’s why I can skip food groups and types easily when I have a good reason for it. Throw any even borderline okay-for-me diet to me and I will make sure to enjoy the hell out of it, probably. So I enjoy myself without keto bread - still useful but I can manage without it if I must - or maybe even desserts? I don’t know, never tried to live without those for long, never saw any plus about it and still don’t see. But I don’t need them to feel I eat great food and I don’t like them now. My normal food is way better than most desserts and carby snacks if I have some variety, that’s important. It’s very odd to me that some people only like food unhealthy for them. Stupid addictive things. When I was a kid, I liked almost everything, usually pretty much. Completely hard, dry rolls alone? Best food ever, I was elated. The veggie dishes no other kids ate in kindergarten? I loved them. Mustard alone? That was too much joy for me to handle. School lunches? Well that was utter crap too often but I usually ate them all. I typically disliked low-fat candy and marzipan though and bread soaked in some liquid, mostly water, I remember plums - that’s some traditional simple dish, my Mom liked it but it’s super gross -, I had my limits. Pickles are perfect food items forever for me but anything with enough vinegar has a good chance, vinegar is almost irresistible, I can’t imagine living without it. But I could, I suppose. I don’t have a food group I totally need let alone a single item. Salt is not food, I obviously need that.)

[David_Stilley]

I am clearly way different My food must be enjoyable,

You make an assumption that I don’t enjoy my food. I very much enjoy my way of eating on all levels. Because I gave myself a chance for my taste buds to evolve a good grilled steak tastes sweet like someone sprinkled a bit of sugar on it!

[Shinita]

No, I actually don’t think so. Of course you can enjoy your food but it’s more like a welcomed side effect or something that you put some effort to reach but not your very, very important goal. My food must be enjoyable. If my enjoyment from food is less on a new diet and I am not very, very desperate (life or death situation, maybe), I probably won’t do it. Or if it’s not that important but the new diet is still significantly better for my health or energy or something, I do it very slowly, solving the problem.
Of course, individual days may be different, sometimes I don’t care about food and daydream about being a snake and not eating for a month. But I can’t eat food I don’t like enough.

I am really, really hopeful I never ever will feel my savory food that sweet… Some natural sweetness is fine but it’s nothing like sprinkled with any amount of sugar. But I am sensitive to (added) sugar, I think, it’s bad enough that so many otherwise pretty nice fruits and vegetables are so sugary but added sugar is really bad. So it’s possible I wouldn’t give the same description even when feeling the same.

My taste buds changed little except I feel certain things sweeter. It’s sometimes good, sometimes borderline bad but it’s fine, I just eat tiny amounts of the most sugary items I want (or choose less sugary ones), great, it’s better for me anyway.

[ChrisW]

I’m a big bread fiend from way back, but a year and a half in on keto and I just see bread as useless filler or a vessel to hold far superior tastier ingredients.

I occasionally make a keto fry bread. Which is basically just an egg, grated cheese, cream, almond flour, pepitas, lsa, psylium husks, chia seeds whisked together then fried in a frying pan.

[kyarn]

I know I can’t eat at a Chinese restaurant. I make what I consider Chinese food at home but it’s only egg foo young and egg drop soup. I’d love to branch out and learn how to ketofy some Chinese dishes. I learned bamboo shoots are pretty low carb. I’m disappointed in the carb count of water chestnuts because I love them. Have you never noticed baby corn varies in carbs from 47g to 3g depending on the brand? I just avoid it since it’s corn.

[David_Stilley]

@kyarn Jicama root is an excellent water chestnut substitute. We actually used it in the best restaurant I worked because it tastes more like fresh water chestnuts than the real canned ones that absorb a nasty metallic can flavor that I dislike. I sub Allulose or erythritol for sugar, avocado, coconut or lard for vegetable oil and have gotten pretty good at using Xanthan gun as thickers, some like the wild yam flour which I can’t remember the name of but it’s the same stuff shirataki is made from. Your stove is key to being able to cook better Chinese food. Cast iron woks are good for lower efficiency standard gas stoves. I have an outdoor Chinese street vendor stove that’s about 200,000 btu that runs on propane. I have done lots with sousvide cooking meats ahead of time and cutting them cold for stir frying as opposed to marinades with corn starch and oil. I hope you find some recipes that work for you…Enjoy

[FishChris]

Still eating my Keto bread, and loads of artificial sweeteners every day.
I feel great. My weight is rock solid.
I’m sure I’m going to end up dying anyway, and so are the rest of you. Have a nice day

[Rebj]

I’m sure I’m going to end up dying anyway, and so are the rest of you.

You know, I honestly think people DO need to be reminded of this!!!