Skip to Content Skip to Navigation Accessibility Policy Click to login to your Account
Get free shipping on all subscription orders + save 20% Shop Now
Bulletproof Bulletproof is a food and beverage company, known for Bulletproof Coffee and products that fuel your mind and body.
Menu
Shop
Shop
Coffee
Ground Whole Bean Single-Serve Pods The High Achiever™ Starter Kits Creamers & Mix-Ins Build Your Coffee Routine View all
MCT Oil
Brain Octane Oil MCT Oil View all
Proteins
Collagen Peptides Protein Bars Collagen Protein Plus Support View all
Supplements
Greens Gummy Vitamins Daily Wellness Immune Support Stress & Sleep Gut & Digestive Health Energy & Brain Health Bone & Joint Support Build Your Wellness Routine View all
Other
Tech Coffee Mugs & Bottles Books View all
Shop All Products
Looking for a personalized product line up?
Take the Quiz
Health Upgrades
Health Upgrades
Guides
Immune Boost Sleep Hacks Brain Upgrades Weight Loss & Diet Anti-Aging View all
Supplements
Greens Gummy Vitamins Daily Wellness Immune Support Stress & Sleep Gut & Digestive Health Energy & Brain Health Bone & Joint Support Build Your Wellness Routine View all
Bulletproof quiz find the right products for you
Product Quiz
Customize your routine

Personalize your product lineup in minutes. Plus, score 20% off!

Take The Quiz
Looking for a personalized product line up?
Take the Quiz
Recipes
Recipes
Recipes
Snacks Breakfasts Main Dishes Beverages Desserts Keto Paleo View all
Shop All Products
Bulletproof Coffee Recipe
FEATURED RECIPE
BULLETPROOF COFFEE: THE OFFICIAL RECIPE
VIEW RECIPE
Beginner keto cookbook
Free eCookbook
21 Easy Recipes to Fuel Your Keto Journey
Download Now
Looking for a personalized product line up?
Take the Quiz
Learn
Learn
Where to Start
Take the Product Quiz About Bulletproof Bulletproof for Beginners Bulletproof Coffee: The Official Recipe What makes Bulletproof Coffee Beans Different? What are MCT Oils? What are Collagen Peptides? Starter Kits Newsletters & Guides
Keto Kickstart
Keto Beginners Guide Calculating Carbs Alcohol Guide Keto Foods List Dirty vs. Clean Keto Weight Loss Troubleshooting Keto Recipes
Bulletproof Blog
Diet Recipes Coffee Supplements Sleep Gut Health Lifestyle View all
Books
Game Changers The Bulletproof Diet Bulletproof The Cookbook View all
Shop All Products
Looking for a personalized product line up?
Take the Quiz
Subscribe & Save 20%
Deals
Deals Take the Product Quiz Subscribe & Save 20% expand/collapse Store Locator Account Cart
Deals Take the Product Quiz Subscribe & Save 20% expand/collapse Account Cart
Search

Share

product
https://www.bulletproof.com/diet/keto/vegan-keto-diet/ article-26929 Vegan Keto: Why a Plant-Based Keto Diet Isn’t Good for You https://www.bulletproof.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/vegan-keto_-header-300x160.jpg 1 USD InStock Keto Bulletproof Diet Keto Vegan article
Home / Diet / Keto
|September 14, 2021

Vegan Keto: Why a Plant-Based Keto Diet Isn’t Good for You

By Dave Asprey
Reviewed by Emily Gonzalez, ND for Scientific Accuracy

Vegan Keto: Why a Plant-Based Keto Diet Isn’t Good for You

  • More and more vegans are learning about the benefits of a high-fat diet, and lately there’s been a rise in vegan keto: all plant-based food, with lots of fat and almost no carbs.
  • Vegan keto is not a good long-term diet. It makes it almost impossible to get a balance of good fats, and it removes most of the protein sources that non-keto vegans can use to get complete protein.
  • If you want to do a plant-based keto diet, go vegetarian. You can make vegetarian keto work with a little planning. Read on to find out how.

The word is spreading about high-fat and keto diets, and as more people learn about the many benefits of eating more fat, new keto diet variations are starting to pop up. One of the latest ones is a vegan keto diet. It’s pretty self-explanatory: all plant-based food, with lots of fat and almost no carbs.

When it comes to performance, a keto vegan diet is a step above a low-fat vegan diet. That said, you’ll still run into a lot of the problems that come up when you cut out animal fat and protein. A vegan diet just isn’t good for you, no matter how you rearrange it. A keto vegetarian diet is better, and is probably doable with a little work, but it’s still going to be a challenge.

Here’s why a vegan keto diet isn’t good for you, and what you should watch out for if you decide to try plant-based keto.

A vegan keto diet makes it hard to get good fats

vegan keto diet fat sourcesOne of the biggest issues with vegan diets is that you don’t have access to the right fats, especially omega-3s. A lot of vegans talk about how you can get omega-3s from nuts and seeds. What they don’t realize is that those omega-3s are in the wrong form. Plants store omega-3s as ALA, a type of omega-3 that humans can’t really use. When you eat ALA, your body only uses about 6-8 percent of it.[1]

When you hear about all the awesome benefits of omega-3s, you’re hearing about EPA and DHA, the omega-3s that come from animal sources like wild fish and grass-fed meat. Plant-based omega-3s don’t actually do much for you, and if you’re eating a vegan diet, you’re going to end up deficient in omega-3 fatty acids.[2]

A vegan keto diet makes your fat intake even more problematic. Plants don’t have the right kind of omega-3s, and they’re high in omega-6s, the inflammatory counterpart of omega-3s.

Your body needs omega-6 fats to function. Omega-6 fats help with brain function, muscle growth, and hormone production. However, they also cause inflammation, which is why you don’t need a lot of them. Unfortunately, most Americans are getting way too many.

The average American has about a 12:1 omega-6 to omega-3 ratio.[3] That’s way too many omega-6s. You want a ratio of 4:1, or even 2:1.[4] The best way to get the right ratio is by eating plenty of wild fish and grass-fed meat and limiting things like nuts and plant oils, which are usually high in omega-6.

Related: How to Get the Right Ratio of Omega 3 vs. Omega 6 Fats

On a vegan keto diet, you want 70-80 percent of your calories to come from fat, and unless you’re only eating spoonfuls of coconut oil, you’re inevitably going to get too many omega-6s and not enough omega-3s.

More Diet Tips From Bulletproof

Woman looking at nutrition label
Why You’re Not Losing Weight on the CICO Diet
A spread of fresh meats, eggs, and cheeses
What is the Cyclical Ketogenic Diet (CKD)?
Alarm clock on plate
How to Do an Elimination Diet and Why Everyone Should Try One
Oil, avocado, a bowl of nuts, salmon and pumpkin seeds on a wooden backdrop
The Bulletproof Diet for Beginners

A vegan keto diet makes it hard to get protein, too

vegan keto diet protein sourcesThe other challenge on a vegan keto diet is getting complete protein. Proteins are made up of amino acids, and a complete protein has all nine “essential” amino acids. They’re the ones that your body can’t make, meaning you have to get them from food.

Eating grains and legumes together — such as rice and beans or rice and lentils — is the standard way to get a complete protein on a vegan diet. There are also a few complete plant proteins, like quinoa and soy.

If you’re doing keto vegan, all of these sources are off the table because they’re too high in carbs. Even if you got all of your protein from relatively low-carb tofu and you’re okay dealing with the downsides of soy, you’ll still have trouble getting enough protein and enough veggies without going over your carb limit and falling out of ketosis. The most realistic option is to drink four or five vegan protein shakes a day, but at that point you’re not even really eating.

And because almost every system in your body uses proteins built from amino acids, an amino acid deficiency will cause all kinds of drops in your performance:

  • Depression. Tryptophan is an essential acid that your body uses to make serotonin, the brain chemical that regulates your mood. Tryptophan deficiency causes rapid-onset depression that reverses as soon as you reintroduce tryptophan to your diet.[5]
  • Inflammation. You’re more susceptible to chronic inflammation, especially brain inflammation, when you don’t get enough amino acids.[6]
  • Immunity. Your immune system relies on essential amino acids, too. You’re more susceptible to infection and disease if you don’t get enough complete protein.[7][8]
  •  Fertility. Female rats deficient in essential amino acids stop getting their period.[9] Several essential amino acids are integral to sperm quality as well.[10]
  • Aging hair and skin. Hair and skin both rely on proteins to stay strong. Amino acid deficiency causes limp, thin hair, and eventually hair loss.[11] Your skin’s collagen and elastin production depend on amino acids from your diet as well.[12]

Your body doesn’t run well without high-quality protein, and it’s hard enough to get enough protein on a normal vegan diet. A keto vegan diet makes things even harder, to the point where it’s not really realistic.

Vegetarian keto is better than vegan keto

vegetarian keto vs vegan ketoIf you don’t eat meat and you want to do plant-based keto, vegetarian is the way to go:

  • Eat lots of pastured eggs for protein, fat, and dense nutrition
  • Use grass-fed butter and fish oil for omega-3s
  • Drink Bulletproof Coffee for energy and calories
  • Drizzle Brain Octane Oil (supercharged MCT oil) on all your veggies

Eating high-quality meat and fish will still upgrade your performance, but with access to non-meat animal foods and a little planning, you can deal with the challenges of being vegetarian and feel pretty good.

Check out this guide to going Bulletproof for vegetarians for a complete list of supplements and foods to include in a keto vegetarian diet. Thanks for reading!

Read Next: The Keto Diet: A Complete Beginners’ Guide to Keto

Join the Bulletproof Revolution

Sign up for early access to sales, product launches, the latest Bulletproof news and more!

Statements made on this website have not been evaluated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Products sold on this website are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Information provided by this website or this company is not a substitute for direct, individual medical treatment or advice. It is the responsibility of you and your healthcare providers to make all decisions regarding your health. Bulletproof recommends that you consult with your healthcare providers regarding the diagnosis and treatment of any disease or condition.

About Dave Asprey

Dave Asprey is an entrepreneur, author and the founder of Bulletproof. In 2011 Asprey introduced the world to the widely-popular Bulletproof Coffee and in 2014, through his New York Times best-selling book of the same name, the Bulletproof Diet. He is a four-time New York Times bestselling author, host of the Webby award-winning podcast Bulletproof Radio, and has been featured on the Today show, Fox News, Nightline, Dr. Oz, and many more.

References

[1] http://www.dhaomega3.org/Overview/Differentiation-of-ALA-pla...
[2] https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/78/3/640S/4690006
[3] https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/71/1/179S/4729338?ijke...
[4] http://web.archive.org/web/20100107103119/http://ocw.tufts.e...
[5] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15131521
[6] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5671663/
[7] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10858703
[8] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2139370/
[9] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22132231
[10] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6629696
[11] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5315033/
[12] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28929384

TAGS

Bulletproof DietKetoVegan

Related Bulletproof Diet Tips

Woman looking at nutrition label
Why You’re Not Losing Weight on the CICO Diet
A spread of fresh meats, eggs, and cheeses
What is the Cyclical Ketogenic Diet (CKD)?
Alarm clock on plate
How to Do an Elimination Diet and Why Everyone Should Try One
Oil, avocado, a bowl of nuts, salmon and pumpkin seeds on a wooden backdrop
The Bulletproof Diet for Beginners
Sign up today & save 15%
SHOP
  • Coffee
  • MCT Oils
  • Proteins
  • Supplements
  • Other
  • All Products
Learn
  • Bulletproof for Beginners
  • Recipes
  • Newsletters & Guides
  • Bulletproof Blog
  • Books
CUSTOMER CARE
  • Contact Us
  • Shipping Policy
  • Return Policy
  • Accessibility Policy
COMPANY
  • About Us
  • Press
  • Careers
  • Customer Reviews
  • Rewards
  • Give $15, Get $15
PARTNERS
  • Store Locator
  • Wholesale
  • Ambassador Program
  • Affiliate Program
Discover What Better Feels Like
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • YouTube

†Statements made on this website have not been evaluated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Information provided by this website or this company is not a substitute for individual medical advice. | ©Bulletproof 360, Inc. 2013–2023

  • Privacy Policy|
  • Terms|
  • Reseller Policy|