Keto, Paleo, and Vegan: Know Your Diet Trends

Nowadays, when planning the menu for a dinner party or a wedding reception, you’ve got to keep in mind a plethora of different dietary restrictions that guests may have. To be the ultimate host, you should try to offer both meat and vegetarian options, and probably one or two more if you’ve got religious guests, picky eaters, or severe allergies to keep in consideration. But throw in newfangled diets like keto, paleo, and vegan, and you may give up altogether!

Fear not. For the lowdown on some possibly confusing diet names and their meanings, we have made a guide to these food trends below, plus suggested meal plans. This will aid you when talking to your health-crazed, environmentally conscious friends and maybe inspire you to try a new diet plan altogether! 

Keto

The ketogenic diet’s goal is to swap out the body’s reliance on carbs for energy to fat instead, putting them into a metabolic state known as ketosis. This low carb, high fat diet means eating loads of protein and healthy fats like meat, fish, eggs, and nuts while cutting down sugar intake in processed foods, grains and starches, fruit, and alcohol. To maintain ketosis, the amount of daily carb intake should be 50 grams maximum.

Paleo

Inspired by paleolithic era food sources, this diet is limited to options that the hunter-gatherer lifestyle of humans from thousands of years ago would have had access to. While shunning processed foods like sugary snacks and drinks, farmed agricultural staples, most dairy products, and trans fats altogether, there is a focus on whole foods like fruits and vegetables, meat and fish, eggs, nuts, seeds, and spices. Search for labels like “grass-fed” and “organic” whenever possible. 

Vegetarian

A popular, ethical dietary choice is eating vegetarian, which means choosing not to eat anything that involves killing an animal. Within vegetarianism, you’ll also find subdivisions of lacto, ovo, and lacto-ovo vegetarians who are those who also include dairy, eggs, or both, respectively, in their meatless diets. A related group, pescatarians will eat fish, crustaceans, and mollusks, but not birds or mammals. Most of these animal-conscious eaters also look for ethically obtained foods whenever they can – think cage-free eggs and dolphin-friendly tuna.

Vegan

If being a vegetarian means not eating animals of any kind, being a vegan takes it one step further by eliminating all animal by-products from the menu. This includes eggs, butter, yogurt, and even gelatin and honey (#savethebees)! This diet is usually championed by animal lovers and environmentalists, although some may become vegan for health reasons. When cutting out meat from your diet, make sure you still maintain your intake of protein and other essential nutrients via alternate sources.

Flexitarian

Instead of a vegan’s more restrictive approach to vegetarianism, a flexitarian eats fruits and veggies most of the time and only occasionally indulges in meat products. This omnivorous diet encourages lowering meat consumption overall, but nothing is actually restricted. Beginners may start with restricting their meat consumption to five days a week, increasing steadily to just two days a week at the advanced level. Enjoy your Meatless Mondays and Tofu Tuesdays!

Raw Food

This extreme diet involves eating foods that have not been heated over 40 degrees Celsius, cooked, or processed in order to preserve nutritional content. Simply processed (i.e., blended or juiced), dried, and fermented foods are okay. Raw fruits, veggies, and even meat are fair game, but food poisoning is a major risk so source your food carefully. Hot coffee and tea are not allowed, but thankfully, cold-brew processes exist. 

Hermoine Ruan | Contributing Writer