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What is paleo versus keto?
Chelsea Kyle. Prop and food styling by Beatrice Chastka.
How low islow carb?
if you decide to begin a diet like low carb,paleo, or keto.
It depends on who you ask.
For carbs, that target range is 45 to 65 percent of your total caloric intake.
(So someone eating 2,000 calories a day would get 900 to 1,300 of their calories from carbs.
Carbs contain 4 calories per gram, so that comes out to 225 to 325 grams.
Beyond that, low carb is not really a prescriptive diet.
Theres a lot of leeway in how you reach that under 45 percent mark.
Under this umbrella are many specific diets that qualify as low carb, each offering different road maps.
More recently, paleo and keto have become wildly popular.
While they both are low-carb diets, thats pretty much where their similarities end, Bruning says.
Heres the deal with each of them.
The basic idea is that human beings are essentially genetically the same as our ancestors during that period.
On his website, Cordain says he himself first encountered the paleo diet concept in a 1985medical journal article.
(For simplicitys sake, well stick with Cordains original version.)
That includes a number of highly nutritious whole foods, like legumes (i.e.
beans, lentils, peanuts),dairy,whole grains, and starchy vegetables like potatoes.
It also coversadded sugars, salt, and refined oils (like canola oil).
And it cuts out any kind of packaged orprocessed foods.
(So you get a hefty amount offiberwith your carbs too.)
When it comes to animal products, there is an emphasis on the source, Cassetty says.
And produce should be fresh whenever possible.
Unlike paleo, keto isallabout the counting.
Usually glucose is the body and brains preferred form of fuel.
We get glucose from carb-y foods, so when we severely restrict carbs the body is deprived of fuel.
This metabolic state, called ketosis, is the goal ofthe keto diet.
However, its very difficult to stay in ketosis, Bruning says.
Generally that means consuming fewer than 20 to 50 grams of carbs a day.
(Scientists are still figuring out exactly why that is.)
you’re free to also have low-sugar berries like raspberries in very small amounts.
In addition to these fatty whole foods, you increasingly see keto-friendly snacks appearing on grocery store shelves.
What you cannot eat, obviously, is carbs.
(This can also make it tricky to get a lot of fiber.)
On keto you really need to moderate everything thats not pure fat.
And thats certainlynot the right pathfor many people.
