What is Keto Chow Core?

Keto Chow Core is our new line of nutritionally complete meal replacement shakes designed for optimum nutrition, with minimal fuss. It uses beef protein isolate, along with high-quality vitamins and minerals, and allows for flexible sweetener options.

You can easily mix one (or several) up with water and your choice of fat to create a filling meal that’s perfect for when you don’t have the time, supplies, kitchen space, or whatever to cook a traditional meal. You can choose between having it pre-sweetened with a special Stevia blend, or getting it with NO sweetener so that you can add one of your choosing (or not!).

Currently, we have Chocolate, Vanilla Cream, and Strawberry Cream – depending on how things go, we may introduce additional flavors.

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What’s different about Keto Chow Core compared to classic Keto Chow?

light colored keto chow in a teal blender bottle (most likely cookies and cream, banana, or vanilla) held by a man in a grey shirt.

Keto Chow Core is dairy free and uses beef protein isolate instead of milk protein isolate.
Keto Chow Core comes either with stevia for the sweetener, or you can choose the unsweetened variant and pick a sweetener of your own choosing (or leave it unsweetened). Among other options, you can choose monk fruit, erythritol, allulose, stevia, sucralose, xylitol, etc…
Keto Chow Core is slightly thinner than classic Keto Chow. The milk protein considerably thickens the mixture, and with that replaced by beef protein isolate, you don’t get that thickening. If you want it to be a bit thicker, 1/4 teaspoon of guar gum can thicken it up very nicely.
Keto Chow Core does not mix as well as classic Keto Chow. If you use cold water and a shaker cup to mix, you should expect some clumps. If you use a blender or VERY warm water, it should mix properly.
Keto Chow Core does not taste the same as classic Keto Chow. Even though some may prefer the taste of classic Keto Chow, we wanted to create an option that would be available to people with different sweetener preferences and dietary restrictions, and that’s what we’ve done. There’s a reason we use the ingredients we do. When ingredients change, so does the result! If you try Keto Chow Core and don’t compare it to classic Keto Chow (or you compare it to other protein drinks), we think you will be very happy with the taste and texture; if you compare it to classic Keto Chow, you just might think we’re insane for releasing Keto Chow Core, so don’t do that. Let Keto Chow Core shine for what it is. =)

Why did you create Keto Chow Core?

The most frequent criticisms we get about Keto Chow are “why do you use sucralose?” “why does it have dairy?” and “I’m fun at parties, you should just eat real food!” That last one is something for a different discussion but we can make a version of Keto Chow that addressed both of the first two concerns, while also taking care of an additional issue people might not have even realized they had—that’s why we went one step further and made the version without sweetener too.

Over the years, we have had many people that were excited with the idea of Keto Chow, but could not have dairy, or they had physiological or ideological problems with sucralose and expressed they would love for us to make something without one or the other. So we did!

What’s the best way to mix Keto Chow Core?

Because of the change in ingredients, Keto Chow Core simply does not mix as easily as classic Keto Chow. If you’ve used classic Keto Chow in the past, you likely will need to adjust some of your expectations and procedures.

For best results, we recommend using very warm water (around 120°F/50°C) so it can properly dissolve the protein which tends to clump up in cold water like hot cocoa powder. If you try to use this temperature water in a blender bottle, it will build up pressure and eventually pop open the spout, so you’ll need to vent it to avoid that.

We recommend using a blender or immersion blender. You can mix Keto Chow Core using a shaker bottle, it’s just more difficult.

If you want to keep Keto Chow Core dairy free, you will likely want to use a source of fat that’s also dairy free, which means no heavy cream. Personally, I don’t think butter is really dairy since it has almost no dairy protein but you could use:

Clarified butter/ghee (melted)
Coconut oil (melted)
Avocado oil
Whole eggs (or egg yolks)
Coconut cream
Nut butters are a bit high in carbs but do work
Actual avocado (use a blender!)
Olive oil (has a very strong flavor most people do not like)
Any other fat source you can think of

To activate the vitamins and minerals in Keto Chow, a minimum of 10 grams of fat needs to be added. Generally, we recommend you use far more than that minimum unless you have a very specific reason (and not just “fewer calories”).

How long does mixed Keto Chow Core last in the fridge?

Depending on the fat added, Keto Chow Core will last at least six days in the fridge, sometimes longer. Feel free to mix up several days’ worth at a time so you can grab it and go.

What sweeteners can be added to the unsweetened Keto Chow Core?

We have tested a variety of different sweeteners and haven’t found any that didn’t work. You can use high-intensity sweeteners like Stevia, Monk Fruit, Sucralose, Aspartame, AceK; sugar alcohols like Allulose, Erythritol, Xylitol; powdered, tablet, or liquid forms. It all works.

The critical thing will be for you to figure out how much of your sweetener of choice you want to use. We have some rough suggestions that you can use as a starting point but your taste will be different. We recommend trying a little less and adding more if you want to.

Liquids	teaspoons	Notes
Splenda monk fruit	1/2 tsp
Splenda Zero	1/2 tsp
Splenda Stevia	1/2 tsp
25% Sucralose Liquid	(around 5 drops)

Powder/Granulated
Erythritol	6 tsp / 2 TBSP	No cooling effect!
Lakanto	6 tsp / 2 TBSP	Gold' or 'Brown' versions dull the chocolate flavor so not reccomended
Swerve	6 tsp / 2 TBSP	Gold' or 'Brown' versions dull the chocolate flavor so not reccomended
Allulose	6 1/2 tsp
Regular Sugar (gasp!)	4 1/2 tsp / 1 1/2 TBSP
Pure Sucralose	0.08g	these quantities are too small to be reliably measured without precise scale
Pure Saccharin	0.24g	these quantities are too small to be reliably measured without precise scale
Pure Aspartame	0.24g	these quantities are too small to be reliably measured without precise scale
Pure Stevia	0.15g	these quantities are too small to be reliably measured without precise scale
Pure Monkfruit (25% concentration)	0.15g	these quantities are too small to be reliably measured without precise scale
Acesulfame Potassium	0.24g	these quantities are too small to be reliably measured without precise scale

Sweetener tablets
Sweetener tablets	4 or 5

What is the Amino Acid Content of Keto Chow Core? Does it have enough Lysine?

We are very happy to publish the complete amino acid content for Keto Chow Core—we even added a total for the branched-chain amino acids. There has been some concern of late about the lysine content of beef protein isolate and if it is sufficient for muscle gain.

Fortunately, there is a great peer-reviewed study where beef protein isolate was compared to whey protein and chicken. The short version of the results is that despite the different amino acid compositions (specifically lysine), the higher conditionally essential amino acids gave essentially the same results for beef isolate compared to whey and “suggests the need to evaluate proteins based on total nutritional potential rather than as a delivery vehicle for single amino acids.” Fun stuff. =)

You can read the full text of the article here.

Amino Acid	Per Serving	Percentage
Alanine	2.46 g	8.87%
Arginine	2.1 g	7.56%
Aspartic acid	1.68 g	6.04%
Cystine	0.03 g	0.1%
Glutamic acid	3.08 g	11.08%
Glycine	5.6 g	20.15%
Histidine	0.31 g	1.11%
Hydroxyproline	2.86 g	10.28%
Isoleucine	0.48 g	1.71%
Leucine	1.04 g	3.73%
Lysine	1.06 g	3.83%
Methionine	0.25 g	0.91%
Phenylalanine	0.64 g	2.32%
Proline	3.36 g	12.09%
Serine	0.95 g	3.43%
Threonine	0.59 g	2.12%
Tryptophan	0.1 g	0.36%
Tyrosine	0.36 g	1.31%
Valine	0.84 g	3.02%
Total Amino Acids	27.79 g
Branch Chain Amino Acids	2.35 g

I want to use a different protein. What options do you have?

One of our oldest products is Base Powder which is all of the vitamins and minerals that make Keto Chow different from a plain protein powder. You mix a scoop of the Base Powder with whatever protein powder you like and BOOM, it’s nutritionally complete.

We originally introduced it for international customers since the flavored, sweetened, protein was the largest and heaviest ingredient – we could ship six packages of the Base Powder for the same cost as one bag of the full mix. The Base Powder is ultimate flexibility and can be used with any protein, any sweetener, or any flavor.

Why Unsweetened? Do you expect people to drink it with no sweetener?

We wanted to give people the option to use a sweetener of their choosing (or none). Having the unsweetened option allows for that.

We have tested drinking it with no sweetener and it was not as bad as we expected. Yeah, that’s not a ringing endorsement but we were pleasantly surprised! We don’t expect that many will choose to leave it unsweetened but for people that are trying to eliminate sweeteners, they now have that option.

One interesting thing is that many of the studies that purport to show adverse effects on gut health with sucralose appear to actually be studies showing that any sweetener triggers sweet receptors in the human digestive system and the potential effects ascribed to sucralose would also apply to stevia, monk fruit, allulose, and other sweeteners. It’s a “next logical question” that none of the studies follow up to address. Eliminate sweeteners altogether and you negate the issue.

Is Keto Chow Core carnivore? Is Keto Chow Core BBB&E?

Classic Keto Chow and Keto Chow Core contain acacia gum, which is derived from plants. There is 1g per serving. We’ve had several individuals that are unable to tolerate any plant compounds report that they are absolutely fine with the plant derivatives in Keto Chow. So it depends on the criteria YOU are using to evaluate whether Keto Chow would fit into your program or not.

Is Keto Chow Core vegetarian? Is Keto Chow Core vegan?

No. Because Keto Chow Core uses beef protein, it is neither vegan nor vegetarian. Most vegetarians that consume milk products would consider classic Keto Chow as vegetarian/ovolactarian.

Can Keto Chow Core be used in a Ninja CREAMi? Can you make Ice Cream with Keto Chow Core?

Keto Chow Core has worked well for us to make ice cream. It is slightly less creamy compared to classic Keto Chow due to the omitted milk protein but when mixed with butter (our preference), it turned out great.

Ready to try the Core? Check it out here.