Will “whipping cream” or “half-and-half” work for keto? Does it have to be “heavy whipping cream”?
Whipping cream can work, it just has a lower fat content. Lower fat content means more lactose (the natural sugar in milk and milk products) which may make ketosis more difficult. Half-and-half has even lower fat and more lactose. For that reason, we typically don’t recommend. If you are using Keto Chow simply for a meal (and not as part of a ketogenic lifestyle), and whipping crem or half-and-half works for you, that’s great!
Here are the calories and carbohydrate content for a 15ml/1 tablespoon “serving”:
| fat % | calories | carbs | carbs/400 calories | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Skim Milk | 0.08 | 5 | 0.76 | 58.35 |
| 2% Milk | 1.98 | 8 | 0.73 | 38.40 |
| Whole Milk | 3.25 | 9 | 0.72 | 31.47 |
| Half-and-half | 11.5 | 20 | 0.65 | 13.13 |
| Light/Table cream | 19.1 | 29 | 0.55 | 7.51 |
| Whipping cream | 30.9 | 44 | 0.44 | 4.05 |
| Heavy whipping cream | 36.1 | 51 | 0.43 | 3.34 |
| Darigold “Classic 40“ | 40.0 | 60 | 0.40 | 2.67 |
| Butter | 81.1 | 102 | 0.01 | 0.03 |
Interestingly enough, all of the creams have less than 1g of carbs per “serving” so the package will say “0g total carbs” – even though the half-and-half has nearly 4x as many carbs per calorie compared to heavy cream. You have to muck around the USDA food database to get accurate nutrition information.
