Is sake keto friendly? Let’s find out! Despite being made out of rice, yeast, and water, a lot of the carbs are burned off during the fermentation process, making the finished product low in carbs. This means that you can enjoy sake on keto without burning through your carb allowance.
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What Is Sake?
Sake is a Japanese alcoholic beverage, often referred to as rice wine.
The process of creating sake is quite intricate, and common ingredients include rice, yeast, and water. The mixture is fermented and the yeast helps convert the contents of the rice into alcohol.
Sake has been a part of Japanese culture for centuries and is typically enjoyed with others for celebrations, special occasions, and commemorative events.
You can drink sake hot or cold, and find sake that is low quality and inexpensive, or luxurious and expensive.
So, let’s find out, is sake keto friendly?
Nutritional Value Of Sake
In one ounce of sake, you will find:
- Calories: 39 calories
- Carbohydrates: 1.5 grams
- Fiber: 0 grams
- Fat: 0 grams
- Protein: 0.1 grams
A typical serving within a traditional sake cup will be between one and three ounces. The nutritional values within your serving of sake might vary slightly depending on the variety of sake you consume.
How Many Carbs In Sake?
When looking at a serving of sake from a sake cup, there will be about 1.5 to 4.5 grams of net carbs per serving.
Is Sake Keto Friendly?
At first glance, sake seems like it must contain a lot of carbs. However, due to sake’s unique fermentation process, many of the carbs within the specific ingredients are broken down and reduced.
Therefore, sake can be included in a keto friendly diet.
The Keto Diet: A Brief Recap
The whole ethos of a keto diet is to keep your macros to 70% Fat, 25% Protein, and 5% Carbohydrates (Carbs).
This 5% of Carbs should not exceed 20 grams per day for a traditional keto diet. Depending on whether you are doing Lazy, Dirty or Strict Keto, will depend on how strictly you track these macros.
In order to keep your carb consumption under 20 grams, you need to be conscious of what you are eating and stick to low carbs healthy foods, that are also low on the glycaemic index. The reason for this is so as to not to spike your blood sugar and knock you out of ketosis.
If keto is new to you, why not check out our Keto Starters Guide.
Are There Different Varieties Of Sake That Are Not Keto Friendly?
Sake is not meant to be consumed in large quantities, as you might do with beer or wine. It is a sipping alcohol that is to be enjoyed in a traditional sake cup.
Therefore, you can curb the number of carbs you consume when you drink sake responsibly. With there being different types of sake, the carbs can add up fast.
Consider looking for sake with lower alcohol content, such as ginjo-shu or honjozo-shu sake.
What Are The Health Benefits Of Sake?
When you compare sake to other types of alcohol, it is one of the best choices in terms of limiting any adverse health effects.
This is due to its lower alcohol content and its simple ingredients. However, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing.
You can find varieties of sake that do not contain any alcohol. If you enjoy the taste of sake but don’t want to drink a lot of alcohol, you might enjoy this as an option from time to time.
Sake also contains amino acids, which are proven to have incredible health benefits.
Staying hydrated on the keto diet is really important, for more on how much water you should be drinking, check out our guide to staying hydrated on the keto diet.
If you’re planning on dehydrating yourself(!) and drinking alcohol on the keto diet, check out our ultimate guide to drinking alcohol on a keto diet. Also, you may be interested in, how to recover from a cheat day.
Summary: Is Sake Keto?
In short, yes, sake can be enjoyed on a keto diet. Although it is made with carb-heavy ingredients, the fermentation process processes these off making sake fine to consume on a keto diet. Just enjoy responsibly.
