Keto? Or Not Keto?

At Munchbox, our mission is to make healthy eating enjoyable and pleasant. That means, not having to ditch your favorite foods while on a diet because it does not confirm to your dietary requirement. In this blog, we go through what our Keto-friendly claim means and the standards that we strictly adhere to, when creating delicious and healthy snacks, food items and desserts for everyone following Keto diet.

In the development of Keto Certified Standards, The Paleo Foundation included ingredients and foods that serve the purpose of mitigating the most well-known adverse effects of the Ketogenic Diet, as well as increasing its tolerability, because individual tolerability of the ketogenic diet is the most important factor for diet acceptance and adherence. Therefore, improving palatability, availability, affordability, and convenience of compliant foods is crucial to preventing diet discontinuation. Hence, at Munchbox, we follow the Keto Certified requirements set forth by The Paleo Foundation as the standard to claiming our products “Keto-Friendly”

The main focus is on the carbohydrates content per serving:


The next focus is on the list of ingredients that are allowed and disallowed by The Keto Standards set by The Paleo Foundation. We have listed down the allowed and disallowed ingredients and food items below so that you can also have a better understanding when purchasing Keto-friendly items from the store or when preparing Keto meals yourself.

The following are the allowed Ingredients list, provided the end products are within the net carbohydrate allowance per serving:

• Meats & Seafood: All meats and seafood are allowed.
• Fruits & Vegetables: All vegetables and fruits including berries are allowed provided that they meet the carbohydrate requirements per serving.
• Nuts & Seeds: All nuts and seeds are allowed.
• Dairy: All dairy is allowed. Full fat dairy is ideal.
• Protein: Gelatin, collagen, bone broths, protein concentrates, isolates, and hydrolysates including whey, casein, egg white, pea, chickpea, soy, peanut, and hemp proteins.
• Milk: All nut milks are allowed. Other allowed milks include, but are not limited to: hemp milk, almond milk, coconut milk, cashew milk, rice milk, soy milk, and tiger nut Milk.
• Oils & Fats: All animal fats and nut oils are allowed. Other allowed oils include red palm oil*, avocado oil, olive oil, coconut oil, high-oleic sunflower oil, cocoa butter, and peanut butter.
• Flavors & Colorings: Allowed flavors include essential oils, oleoresins, extracts*, distillates*, and ingredients that contain flavoring derived from spices, fruits, vegetables and other plant material, meat or insect derivatives, insect oils, and stearic acid*.
• Sweetners: Honey, stevia (Reb A), coconut sugar, date sugar, fruit juice, monk fruit (lo han guo), inulin, cane sugar, allulose, and sugar alcohols are allowed.
• Coffees & Teas: All coffees and teas are allowed in the Keto Certified Program. Stabilizers & Emulsifiers: All food-grade hydrocolloids, anti-caking agents, stabilizers, and emulsifiers are permissible. 
• Spices: All spices are allowed.
• Supplements: Allowed supplements include but are not limited to vitamin and mineral supplements, MCT oil, omega 3s, vitamin D, digestive enzymes, exogenous ketones, electrolytes, creatine, caffeine, HMB, BCAAs.
• Chocolates: Chocolate and cocoa powder are allowed in Keto Certified Products provided that the end-product meets the carbohydrate requirements of the Keto Certified program.
• Grains: All grains are allowed in the Keto Certified program provided that the end- product meets the carbohydrate requirements of the Keto Certified program. Legumes: All legumes are allowed in the Keto Certified program provided that the end- product meets the carbohydrate requirements of the Keto Certified Program.

The following are completely disallowed ingredients in the Keto Certified Program:

• Partially Hydrogenated Oils: Partially-hydrogenated, trans fats such as soybean, margarine, and vegetable oils.
• Artificial Sweetners: Artificial sweeteners such as saccharin, cyclamate, acesulfame, aspartame, and sucralose.
• Artificial flavours: Artificial flavors are not allowed in the Keto Certified program.

The next focus is definitely the taste and flavour of the products, to make sure that our Keto-friendly items are enjoyable on the palate. Shop our wide range of delicious, healthy Keto-friendly products created with the above set standards here.