What to eat on a low-carb diet

In this section you can learn exactly what to eat on low carb, whether you prefer visual guides, detailed food lists, delicious recipes or a simple get started guide.

Let’s start with a quick visual guide to low carb. Here are the basic low carb food groups you can eat all you like of, until you’re satisfied:

The numbers above are grams of digestible carbs per 100 grams (3.5 ounces). Fiber is not counted, you can eat all the fiber you want.

¹⁴

All foods above are below 5% carbs. Sticking to these foods will make it relatively easy to stay on a moderate low-carb diet (less than 50 grams of net carbs per day) or even a strict low-carb diet, with less than 20 grams of net carbs per day.

Detailed low-carb foods list 

Try to avoid

Here’s what you should not eat on low carb – foods full of sugar and starch. These foods are much higher in carbs.

The numbers are grams of digestible carbs per 100 grams (3.5 ounces), unless otherwise noted.

Detailed list of foods to avoid 

What to drink

What drinks are good on a low-carb diet? Water is perfect, and so is coffee or tea. Preferably use no sweeteners.

¹⁵

 A modest amount of milk or cream is okay in coffee or tea (but beware of caffe latte!).

¹⁶

The occasional glass of wine is fine too.

For more, check out our complete guides to low-carb drinks and low-carb alcohol.

Visual low-carb guides

Here are more detailed visual guides to the amount of carbs in common foods. Is a specific food item low or high in carbs? Click to find out:

Vegetables 

Fruits 

Nuts 

Snacks 

Alcohol 

Fats & sauces 

Drinks 

How many carbs? 

Sweeteners 

Dairy