So, you’ve committed to a keto diet, drawn in by promises of weight loss, lowering your cholesterol, or increasing overall health. But does that mean you have to sacrifice your morning cup of joe?
In short, no. You can drink coffee on the keto diet.
In this read, we dispel some of the common myths about keto and coffee, giving you the best blends, brews, and additions to keep your morning coffee keto-friendly and delicious.
What’s the Best Coffee for the Keto Diet?
The ketogenic diet — keto for short — is a low-carb high-fat diet that promotes weight loss and potential health benefits through a bodily response known as ketosis. This strict diet restricts carbohydrate intake to less than 50 grams per day, ruling out many common foods and drinks. However, coffee, when made correctly, is keto-friendly.
Here’s what to look out for when choosing the best coffee for the ketogenic diet:
- Organic Coffee — If you’re practicing keto, you’re probably health-conscious. If you want to improve your metabolic health through ketosis, avoid poor-quality, non-organic coffee. Organic coffee is grown without the use of chemical fertilizers, ensuring the beans are toxin-free.
- Mold-Free Coffee — Mycotoxins from mold are worryingly common in coffee. These toxins may negatively impact the gut, respiratory system, and central nervous system. Make sure to opt for coffee that undergoes strict fungal testing.
- Arabica, Robusta, & Blends — Whether you choose arabica beans, robusta varieties, or a blend of the two comes down to personal preference. Robusta coffee, being naturally higher in caffeine and lower in natural sugars, is especially attractive for keto. If you’re looking for a balance of flavors, coffee blends might be the perfect choice.
- Whole Bean Coffee — Freshly ground coffee isn’t just better for flavor. Grinding coffee fresh may also produce a brew with a higher level of antioxidants. If you want to improve your health through keto, selecting a whole-bean coffee is recommended.
- Bulletproof Coffee — Bulletproof coffee is made with freshly brewed black coffee, grass-fed ghee (butter), and MCT oil. It may be beneficial for the keto diet — providing energy in the form of fat without carbs that would inhibit ketosis.
- Coffee With Milk — If you enjoy your morning coffee with milk, you're in luck. Adding a small amount of dairy milk to your coffee won’t stop ketosis. However, milk does contain a low level of carbohydrates, so monitor how much you consume.
What Is the Keto Diet?
The keto diet restricts carbohydrate intake while increasing fat and protein intake as much as possible. The end goal of this? It induces a state of ketosis in the body — forcing the body to metabolize fat instead of glucose from carbohydrates. In theory, this can help you burn fat stores and lose weight.
Despite the purported health benefits of following this diet, critics often say that it’s not as effective as perceived. However, many people use the keto diet successfully to lose weight and keep it off, while others use the diet for health reasons.
During the first few days of eating no carbohydrates, your body will rapidly burn through glucose stores in the body. Carbohydrates in this form are stored with water in the body, meaning that when the carbs have been metabolized, you’ll rapidly lose water weight in a few days [1].
After this period, the body begins to burn fat as fuel — burning fat stores rapidly. At least, until ketosis is broken through carbohydrate consumption.
How Does Coffee Fit Into the Keto Diet?
Coffee slots into the keto diet very nicely because in its raw form it's carbohydrate-free. The only way coffee may not be suitable for a keto diet is if it contains a lot of added sugar. Sugar is strictly prohibited from the diet, so this may be an obstacle for those who add sugar to their morning brew.
There are plenty of sugar-free coffee options that still provide delicious flavor. You can also brew coffee with specialty products like butter-roasted beans, which often have a particularly chocolatey, rich flavor.
Finding the Best Keto Coffee for Your Diet: What You Need To Know
If you’re just getting started pursuing the keto diet, then you may feel overwhelmed by its restrictiveness. Thankfully, coffee is on the list of food and drinks allowed in the diet, though you may need to change how you make it.
Here are some things to keep in mind when choosing the best coffee for a keto diet:
1. Coffee Bean Type
Different types of coffee beans contain slightly different chemical profiles. Understanding the differences can help you find the right coffee for your lifestyle.
A) Robusta
Robusta beans contain around twice as much caffeine as arabica beans. To get the most out of robusta beans, we suggest opting for a dark roast. Dark roast robusta beans are naturally sweeter — masking some of the bitterness associated with robusta.
Robusta beans naturally taste strong and earthy. A dark roast coffee might be ideal for the keto diet since it contains a strong caffeine hit and pairs well with dairy such as butter and milk.
B) Arabica
Arabica beans naturally contain more fat than robusta beans. While this fat isn’t enough to benefit your keto diet, it’s something to consider.
Arabica coffee is also naturally sweeter and less bitter than robusta. If you take your coffee with sugar before keto, arabica is the best way to go after you start the diet.
C) Blends
Blends of arabica and robusta beans balance the flavors and aromas of both. The robusta beans typically bring a dark, earthy note to your final brew, while the arabica beans add complex citrus and nut aromas.
Blends provide “the best of both worlds” for keto — a strong caffeine hit, natural sweetness, and a palatable flavor profile.
2. Roast Level
Different roast levels bring different flavors and aromas to the cup — let’s discuss how they impact your coffee.
- Light Roast: A light roast typically has a fruity and citrus-oriented flavor palate due to the plant flavors in the beans.
- Medium Roast: Medium roast beans strike a balance in flavor between dark and light roasts — they combine the richness of a well-roasted dark bean as well as the brightness of a light roast.
- Dark Roast: Dark roast coffee’s natural, earthy bitterness is an amazing contrast to the smooth richness of butter, cream, and other high-fat ingredients you may use in the keto diet. Combining the two ingredients can make for a rich and complex beverage.
- Butter Roasted: Roasting coffee with butter is a Vietnamese tradition done to enhance the flavors of the beans. The oil-soluble flavor compounds in coffee can dissolve in the remaining fats present in brewed butter-roasted coffee.
3. Growing Practices
Different growing practices carried out by skilled farmers can have a great impact on the beans, leading to vastly different flavors between the two crops. How can that impact your keto coffee?
Organic coffee is a good choice if you’re looking for the healthiest choice possible. While harmful chemicals are generally outlawed from use in agriculture, there are still legal chemicals like pesticides that you may want to avoid. The best way to avoid these man-made chemicals is to opt for organic food and drink where possible, especially organic coffee.
Organic coffee can also have a slightly enhanced taste since each crop has been allowed to come to full ripeness in the field in its own time. This may not sound like a big deal, but forcing a crop to ripeness can lead to a lack of flavor, as opposed to allowing the crop to mature “on the vine.”
4. Certified Mold-Free
Mold can affect beans that are regularly packed and transported around the world. Mycotoxins can be present in poor-quality coffee beans. These mycotoxins can negatively affect human health.
Always look for a certification to ensure that coffee or any product is mold-free. Many organizations run tests to ensure that food is mold-free. Finding a certified mold-free coffee is wise if you’re looking for the healthiest options.
5. Caffeine Content
The caffeine content of coffee is a key thing to consider when planning out your keto diet. After all, caffeine’s ability to speed up metabolism can be very helpful for weight loss [7].
If you want to track down a high-caffeine option that would be ideal for a quick boost before the gym, instant espresso is a great choice. Instant coffee products can be a great pre-gym option since they can be made in seconds and pack in twice as much coffee as an espresso shot. This combination can give you a great boost, leading to a super powerful workout.
FAQs: Coffee on the Keto Diet
Now that we’ve discussed how coffee fits into the keto lifestyle, let’s run through some keto coffee FAQs.
1. What Is the Best Keto Coffee?
The best keto coffee out there is a dark, butter-roasted coffee bean. These are packed with flavor and traditional growing and roasting techniques, including being tossed with butter during the roast.
2. Can You Drink Coffee on the Keto Diet?
Yes. The two main things to cut out of your diet when following the keto lifestyle are carbs and sugar. Since coffee doesn’t contain these, it’s perfectly fine to drink. However, if you add sugar or syrup to your coffee, you will have to stop those additions.
3. How Can You Make Coffee More Keto-Friendly?
An easy way to increase coffee's keto-friendliness is to start drinking bulletproof coffee. This is a fairly modern invention in which butter is melted into the coffee before you drink it, which can be a great way to increase fat intake on the keto diet.
As well as triggering ketosis, bulletproof coffee is said to increase the mental and physical energy levels of the person drinking it and suppress their appetite [5].
4. Can You Lose Weight Drinking Keto Coffee?
Yes. The keto diet is an efficient way to lose weight by burning fat, and coffee can help with that. Caffeine has been shown to increase your resting metabolic rate (RMR), meaning that you’re burning more calories at a base level than if you hadn’t had any caffeine [8].
5. Can I Put Milk in my Coffee on Keto?
As long as you’re not drinking large amounts of milk, adding just a little to your coffee is typically considered keto-friendly.
6. When Is the Best Time to Drink Keto Coffee?
If your goal is to lose weight, then the best time to drink keto coffee is while you’re fasting. Because your stomach will be empty, it will absorb the caffeine and other beneficial chemicals within the coffee more rapidly.
Related: Best Time To Drink Coffee
7. What Is the Best Coffee Creamer for a Keto Diet?
Many coffee creamers are explicitly designed for those on a keto diet. If you can’t find one of these options in stores, you could also make your creamer by combining milk and heavy cream.
References:
- Harvey, C., Schofield, G. M., & Williden, M. (2018). The use of nutritional supplements to induce ketosis and reduce symptoms associated with keto-induction: A narrative review. PeerJ, 6, e4488.
- Jakaria, M., Haque, M. E., Kim, J., Cho, Y., Kim, S., & Choi, K. (2018). Active ginseng components in cognitive impairment: Therapeutic potential and prospects for delivery and clinical study. Oncotarget, 9(71), 33601.
- Giesbrecht, T., Rycroft, J. A., Rowson, M. J., & De Bruin, E. A. (2010). The combination of L-theanine and caffeine improves cognitive performance and increases subjective alertness. Nutritional neuroscience, 13(6), 283–290.
- Masood W, Annamaraju P, Khan Suheb MZ, et al. Ketogenic Diet. [Updated 2023 Jun 16]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2024 Jan-. Available from:
- Fritchen, J. (2016). Acute metabolic effects of Bulletproof Coffee (Doctoral dissertation)
- Dulloo, A. G., Geissler, C. A., Horton, T., Collins, A., & Miller, D. S. (1989). Normal caffeine consumption: influence on thermogenesis and daily energy expenditure in lean and postobese human volunteers. The American journal of clinical nutrition, 49(1), 44–50.
- Tabrizi, R., Saneei, P., Lankarani, K. B., Akbari, M., Kolahdooz, F., Esmaillzadeh, A., Nadi-Ravandi, S., Mazoochi, M., & Asemi, Z. (2019). The effects of caffeine intake on weight loss: a systematic review and dos-response meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Critical reviews in food science and nutrition, 59(16), 2688–2696.
- Acheson, K. J., Zahorska-Markiewicz, B., Pittet, P., Anantharaman, K., & Jéquier, E. (1980). Caffeine and coffee: their influence on metabolic rate and substrate utilization in normal weight and obese individuals. The American journal of clinical nutrition, 33(5), 989–997.
