Mom’s Doing Keto

Picture this: You have decided to switch to a low carb diet, eliminated all forbidden products from your fridge and kitchen cabinets, bought everything necessary, and downloaded a gazillion recipes. So, you fling yourself into cooking keto dishes. They are tasty, nourishing, and everything goes as planned. You are happy. But your family members start to crinkle their noses: “Are we supposed to eat THIS too now? Can we have some fries? What about rice and flatbreads with curry? We are not getting any more meat pies, then?”

In this situation, you have two options. First, you let them know that your health is in priority, and everyone is going to eat what mommy eats. Second, you cook for yourself and for them separately, which is rather exhausting and expensive, isn’t it?

So,what do you do if you decided to follow a keto diet, but your family isn’t into it?

As always, compromising is the best. You need to come to an agreement. Here’s how it works in our family.

Breakfasts are the easiest. We all get up and eat at different times, so everyone cooks their own breakfast. There are always eggs, bacon, curd cheese, cheese or something else to ‘put on bread’ in our fridge. It’s just, everyone has their own bread. My husband and son eat normal bread, while I stick with the low-carb one. I bake it once a week, and it takes me 7-10 days to eat a small loaf. On weekends, I cook breakfast for everyone. For example, we may have eggs of some kind: an omelette, shakshouka, frittata, etc. No one has turned down such a breakfast so far.

When it comes to workdays, lunches are also easy. My husband is eating at the canteen at work, my son is mostly eating out too. Hence, they can always munch some junk food or something that I don’t cook (and don’t see).

As for dinners and weekend lunches, a different approach is required. In truth, a low carb diet isn’t that awful. It involves meat, poultry, fish, healthy veggies, and dairy products.  Actually, it’s healthy eating. In most cases, I don’t need to change anything. Everyone loves a steak with salad or baked veggies. The same goes for fish and seafood. I use sugar substitutes for desserts, and my family cannot tell the difference. Moreover, some peculiar dishes, such as cauliflower risotto with mushrooms, have become the new favourites. Celery root purée has also become a success. But one day my boys admitted they missed home-cooked pasta, pies, and pizza.

I had to take that into consideration. When pasta is on the menu, I make one sauce and two types of pasta, usual wheat pasta for my men, and low carb soy pasta for myself. When we are craving some pizza or pies, I make special dough for myself, but the filling is the same for everyone. And whenever we cook curry (it’s a frequent item in our menu), we always have two types of rice on the table, basmati and cauliflower rice.

As you can see, it’s not a must for everyone to cook their own dish. It suffices to cook some additional garnish. That’s a legit middle ground.

Now, what am I trying to say with all of this? No matter which diet you follow, especially if it’s for your health, you need your family’s support. Without it, achieving good results and preserving a good mood is very difficult. Take the interests of your family members into consideration and indulge them with their favourite dishes from time to time in gratitude for their care and attention.

This was just an example of how the Mom’s Doing Keto project functions in our family. You are free to experiment and pick whatever suits you and your family the most.