How the Ketogenic Diet Can Be Healthy

I keep reading all these news reports and opinions about how the Ketogenic (Keto) Diet is unhealthy and shouldn't be followed. From my experiences with the diet, along with other family members, I'm confused how it's not healthy. I wonder if the Keto Diet is being confused with hardline diets that eliminate nearly all carbs versus one that restricts carbs by eliminating most processed foods and sugars. With the Keto Diets we follow, you still eat meat as that is low carb of course but by adding the other food choices, it can be a completely healthy diet to follow. A regular day with us is using items such as cauliflower instead of potatoes and homemade ranch instead of honey mustard or low carb tortilla shells instead of bread. My oldest and I have this conversation quite often while cooking as to us, how can eliminating processed foods ever be a bad thing? 

A normal meal for us might include a salad with cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and onion with ranch dressing. We can either make this a meal by adding baked or grilled chicken or steak.  We also like to make mashed cauliflower instead of mashed potatoes as it's really good. Some days we might have brocolli or cabbage or one of the other low carb meals. I think if you are one that wants to lose weight fast and adhere to a strict Keto type diet, it can be unhealthy but when one chooses a diet that reduces carbs by a healthy elimination of sugars and processed foods, it's a win-win. By choosing the Ketogenic Diet, we also prepare food from scratch instead of popping something in the oven or microwave or even going to a fast food restaurant. We have found so many resources in making great tasking food that reduces our carb intake and we still lose weight.

Some of our favorite dinner meals include:

• Mississippi Pot Roast made in a crock pot with onions and pepperoncinis. 
• Greens beans with turkey sausage
• Meatloaf with mashed cauliflower
• Fathead Pizza
• Steak Salad
• Modified Cottage Pie
• Fajitas 
• Smothered Pork Chops with broccoli 

We have found an array of recipes online and have created some of our own. It's a diet that requires dedication and if you can prepare food ahead of time, it does make food preparation faster. Overall, I think the Keto Diet is a good life change diet to make and we have found not only do we lose weight on it but we feel so much better and have more energy on it. With the abundance of items on the market that are low carb, it makes it easy to just start switching out carb-laden foods out for healthy versions.