Stacey Crawford - Keto in an Instant: 100 Ketogenic Recipes for Your Instant Pot

The ketogenic diet is a high-fat, moderate-protein, low-carbohydrate diet that can produce significant health benefits for both the mind and body. Keto is not a new concept, but recently its been embraced as a better way to burn fat, lose weight, and improve health. But what is it, and how did it come about?

Physicians first introduced the ketogenic diet in the early twentieth century as a treatment for managing seizure symptoms in epilepsy patients. Prior to the discovery of the keto diet, physicians commonly prescribed fasting as a treatment for reducing seizures. And while fasting produced some positive results, it simply was not a sustainable way to eat. It was later discovered that patients who ate a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet often experienced the same metabolic effects that fasting had produced, but without the need for prolonged fasting. Recent scientific studies on the impact of the ketogenic diet show significant health benefits including improved brain function, decreased insulin resistance, lower blood sugar levels, weight loss, and more. Eating high levels of dietary fat was once considered taboo, but science is proving it to be a smarter and more sustainable way to fuel your body and improve your health.

The key to success on the ketogenic diet is consuming the right types of foods in the proper ratios to force your body into a metabolic state called ketosis. Ketosis occurs when the body is so starved of the sugars it typically utilizes for fuelsugars that normally come from sugar and carbohydratesthat its instead forced to burn existing body fat to produce fuel. A by-product of this process are ketones, which are the organic compunds the body uses for fuel in place of glucose. Ketones are produced by the liver through ketosis and are measurable in the body when a state of ketosis is achieved.

The key to attaining ketosis is consuming the right balance of macronutrients. These core macrosprotein, fat, and carbohydratesare all found in the foods we eat and are the benchmarks for measuring the nutritional breakdown of a diet. A typical western diet has about 25 to 35 percent of calories coming from fat, 15 to 25 percent from protein, and 50 to 60 percent from carbohydrates. The ketogenic diet, however, generally has around 70 to 75 percent of calories coming from fat, 15 to 20 percent from protein, and only about 5 to 10 percent from carbohydrates. Most keto dieters follow this general macro ratio, although there are some variationsathletes, for instance, may consume more carbs for fuel and to aid in recovery.

Carbohydrates are compounds that are present in most of the foods we eat and theyre what the body uses to produce glucose, which in turn is what it uses for fuel. There are different types of carbs, including simple carbohydrates and complex carbohydrates. Simple carbs are comprised of simple sugars or starches and are what the body converts into glucose, which it then uses as energy or stores away as fat. Complex carbs are more difficult for the body to digest and thus dont create the spikes in blood sugar that simple carbs produce, so theyre a much less efficient source of energy for the body. While simple carbs are converted into energy quickly, they raise blood sugar levels and can be converted into fat. Complex carbs, and fiber, generally do not raise blood sugar levels, are less digestible, and are not converted into fat. (Fiber is also a form of carbohydrate, but unlike simple carbs, fiber is not digestible, so its not usable as a source of energy and instead is just passed through the body.)