Rising Food Costs? Here's how to adapt your Keto Diet

Has inflation and problems within the food supply chain affected the way that you do Keto?

It definitely has for us.

Empty grocery store shelves and higher food prices overall has seriously impacted what we buy, where, and how much.

We are used to stocking up heavily when meat and produce go on sale, but each week, it seems like the sale price for Keto-friendly groceries keeps going up.

Not down.

This has required us to adapt to the current situation, so in this post, I'm going to share what we are doing to help keep our food budget in check.

Are rising food prices making it difficult to stick to your low-carb diet? Here's how to adapt your spending habits to meet your weight-loss goals on Keto.

Prioritize Your Proteins

When we first moved to Texas, we were excited to see the cost for beef brisket and pork spareribs – foods we couldn't afford to buy in Utah. So, your geographical location is going to make a big difference in how much things cost and what you can afford to eat on Keto.

However, the principle of prioritizing your proteins still applies.

When determining what you have to spend on Keto-friendly groceries, you'll need to place an emphasis on proteins. Map out your protein needs first. Don't skimp on meat, eggs, and cheese just because your funds are tight.

Protein is the very foundation of a low-carb diet.

The body can get along without carbs just fine, but it cannot get along without an adequate amount of dietary protein.

You need about 12 to 16 ounces of protein foods per day. Every day. That's approximately 21 servings of 4 to 6 ounces each, per week, if you're still eating three times a day.

What you choose to eat is where adaption comes in.

You might not be able to keep eating what you were eating pre-Covid. That's the cold, hard truth. Some of your purchases might have to change.

Ours did.

We haven't bought beef brisket or pork spareribs for a long time now (although, I still have 3 racks of uncooked ribs in the freezer) because they haven't been on sale for less than $2 a pound like they were when we first moved here.

Instead, we have changed our focus.

We mainly buy chicken leg quarters ($5 to $7 for a 10-pound bag), chicken breasts (1.50 pound), and pork shoulder roasts ($1 to $1.50 a pound). We also watch the Latino sales fliers for pork chops, which are $1.59 a pound this week.

Since my budget for meat is an average of $2 a pound, pork chops are still doable here, but we also look at everything else because you never know when you're going to run into a good in-store deal.

Great prices are not always in a store's fliers.

For example:

Last week, Kroger had their spiral hams on sale for 49 cents a pound, no limit. That came to about $5 each, so we bought 5 of them for $25. We cooked up one right away for lunch meat (which I then divided into baggies and froze) and stuffed the rest of the whole hams into the freezer to cook up later on.

While cheese is quite high right now, when compared to meat, Kroger also had a digital coupon a few weeks back where we could get 2-pound bricks of Kroger brand cheese for only 2.99 each – limit 5.

So we bought 5.

Bacon at Costco has been extremely high lately, $25 for 4 pounds, so we've ditched the bacon for right now and have been enjoying breakfast sausages on the weekend with our eggs, instead. Kroger brand sausage links were only $1.99 each with a personal paper coupon the last time we bought them, and each package will feed us for 3 meals.

Hamburger is cheaper at Costco, than other stores, but still quite costly. I think we paid $3.69 a pound the last time we bought ground meat, so we don't eat it as often as we used to. I save it for nightly meals instead of my lunches, and am eating that cheap ham and cheese instead.

The other thing I do is balance our protein spending.

What do I mean by that?

We absolutely love hot wings, but wings are over $5 a pound at our local grocery stores. Way beyond our budget. Luckily, Costco sells a 10-pound bag of frozen chicken wings for $30. That's $3 a pound, which is cheaper than the grocery store, but higher than our $2 a pound target.

To balance the extra cost of the wings, we eat meats that are way less than $2 a pound more often.

Separate Your Needs from Your Wants

Just walking into a grocery store can trigger your urge to buy, so shopping less often can help to control that. Stores are set up to coax us into spending more than we intended.

And while you need to thoroughly enjoy your low-carb diet, in order to make it sustainable, it's a good idea to separate your needs from your wants before you walk in the door.

To do Keto, you need 12 to 16 ounces of protein foods per day and around 20 net carbs. It won't take much to get there. A cup to cup-and-a-half of steamed vegetables or a small salad isn't going to break your budget.

But low-carb processed foods certainly will.

You don't need low-carb tortillas, almond flour, pork rinds, or even sugar substitutes to do Keto. These types of foods are wants, rather than needs.

Needs are proteins plus 20 carbs, with most of those carbs coming in the form of vegetables, so don't lose sight of the fact that most of the low-carb recipes you'll find online fall into the “want” department.

They are not necessary to reach your weight-loss goals.

However, vegetables can be expensive too.

For example:

Hubby loves asparagus but at $3 a pound, generally divided into 2-pound bundles, $6 is a pretty stiff price to pay for a single side dish. Frozen broccoli and cauliflower are much cheaper and come in at about a dollar per meal for both of us.

Kroger has been trying to sell off their Thanksgiving stock of green beans, so those cans of beans have been selling for only 50 cents each over the past month. At that price, we can have them 2 or 3 times a week without getting bored.

This can also help to make up for a few splurges on meats or other goodies.

Lettuce is higher right now, too. Often considered a low-carb staple, but it doesn't have to be.

When I was doing my own version of Kimkins several years ago, I didn't like the spray-on salad dressings that diet required, so I opted out of the salad and went for steamed vegetables with a pat of butter on top, instead.

However, salads can be as cheap as you want them to be.

Romaine hearts were $3.50 for a pack of three last week, and a head of lettuce will feed us several meal-size salads. It's what you add to that lettuce that drives up the cost.

I like to keep things simple, so I chop up a container of cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, and bell peppers to already have on hand and store the torn lettuce in a separate air-tight container. It enables us to make a quick dinner salad when time is short.

To that, we add chopped meat, cheese, and homemade Ranch-Style dressing.

Snacks and Desserts are Optional

What really drives up the cost of a Keto Diet?

Snacks and desserts! Condiments and processed foods! Even eating out!

It's not the meat and vegetables. If you're mindful of what you buy, meat and vegetables come to far less than what you were spending before you went Keto.

It's all of the non-essential stuff that jacks up the price.

For example:

Snacking is often a habit, rather than driven by hunger. If you're used to nibbling in front of the computer or TV, whether you're hungry or not, that habit is going to drive up your food costs.

Same goes for dessert, condiments, and processed foods. Once you get your meat and vegetable costs under control, you have to decide if your budget can handle those extras and which ones are the most important for you.

You need to enjoy your low-carb diet for everything to work, so I'm not asking you to ditch the snacks and processed foods. I'm simply helping you to understand that when it comes to weight loss, you'll have to be choosey as to what you spend your money on.

Since we're gluten free, we hardly ever eat out. It's too risky for us. Instead, hubby wants dessert and snacks every day.

Dessert and snacks are important for him, so we've cut back on condiments and processed gluten-free foods to make that happen. While I do buy gluten-free tortillas, we don't eat burritos as often as we used to.

Same goes for those chicken wings. Initially, we ate them every week but now, with food prices continuing to rise, it's closer to every other week instead. We still have them, just not as often.

What's important for you might be different.

But only you can decide what that is.