As you may know, keto is a high-fat, low-carb diet that restricts most fruits and vegetables due to their high carb content. This can pose a challenge when it comes to meeting your daily fiber, vitamin, and mineral requirements.
Mushrooms’ fiber and essential nutrient content can play a massive role in helping you stay the keto course.
Many dietary mushrooms are a good source of fiber, B vitamins, and key minerals like copper, potassium, and selenium.
Mushrooms are an ace in the hole in achieving the keto trifecta—high fat, moderate protein, and low carb.
To stay true to the keto diet, you need your total daily calories — 2,000 for women and 2,500 for men — to come primarily from fats. We break down keto nutrient distribution in the table below (1).
For context, one banana (∼100 grams) may give you anywhere between 23–27 g of carbs.
This begs the question: how low is the carb content of mushrooms compared to the limits of keto?
Low Carbohydrate Content
White button mushrooms, shown above, are a good source of the amino acid ergothioneine.
The carb content of mushrooms ranges between 4 g per 100 grams for white button mushrooms and 8.5 g per 100 grams for king oyster mushrooms.
This is well below the minimum carb threshold you’re aiming for with keto.
For your body to stay in ketosis (burning fat instead of sugar), your daily intake of carbs should be approximately35 g and no more than 50 g.
While you need to be more cautious with shiitake mushrooms, adding a serving of mushrooms (100 g, or about 4 oz) to one or more meals will give you amazing nutritional benefits without spiking your blood sugar or destabilizing ketosis.
Lion’s mane mushroom contains 7.6 g of carbohydrates per 100 g, but 4.4 g of that is fiber, meaning the net carbs are only 3.2 g per serving.
Source of Dietary Fiber and Beta-D-Glucan
Despite being low carb, mushrooms have a relatively high fiber content: 1.7–4.4 g of fiber per 100 grams of mushrooms. That’s better than carrots or broccoli!
Fiber is typically found in fruits, veg, and grains, which are all restricted in keto. Therefore, you’ll need all the fiber you can get to aid your digestion while following the keto diet.
Mushrooms contain two types of dietary fiber:
Insoluble fiber: Bulks up your stool and eases the passage of food through the intestines
Soluble fiber: Stabilize blood sugar levels by slowing down nutrient absorption in the gut
Here’s where it gets interesting.
Mushrooms are an excellent source of a specific type of soluble fiber called beta-d-glucan.
Beta-d-glucan, an immunomodulator, binds to immune receptors, up-regulating or down-regulating immune responses according to your body’s needs.
Benefits of beta-d-glucan include:
Decreased levels of bad cholesterol in the blood (LDL), therefore lowering your risk of heart disease (2)
Regulation of the body’s immune response and inflammatory triggers, helping you avoid a prolonged state of inflammation (3)
Lower blood sugar levels due to increased insulin sensitivity in the body’s tissues, which absorb and use glucose more effectively (4)
Functional mushrooms, such as reishi, turkey tail, and cordyceps, are good sources of beta-glucans, giving you about 25% of your recommended daily intake.
To tie it all together, mushrooms’ fiber content may be the answer to challenges common in the keto diet. These include:
Constipation due to low fiber intake
Increased inflammatory markers because of the higher intake of saturated fats
Struggle to maintain ketosis (fat burning) since blood sugar levels may fluctuate based on food, physical activity, medication, hormones, or sleep
A Powerhouse of Vitamins, Minerals, and Antioxidants
Oyster mushrooms are high in antioxidants that can fight free radicals and prevent damage to cells, helping to lower inflammation.
Five servings of fruit and vegetables per day give us the vitamins and minerals we need to function healthily.
Unfortunately, keto diet restrictions can severely limit your nutrient options. This is where mushrooms come in, helping you bridge the nutrient gap.
Essential nutrients in mushrooms include:
Potassium: Helps regulate your heartbeat, muscle, and nerve function, as well as fluid balance in the body (5)
Niacin: Aids in converting food into energy and repairing damaged DNA (6)
Pantothenic acid: Helps your metabolism to function properly and aids in the building and breakdown of fats in the body (7)
Selenium: Powerful antioxidant that protects your body from damage caused by excess free radicals and supports proper function of the thyroid gland and production of thyroid hormones (8)
Ergothioneine: Stable antioxidant that protects red and white blood cells from oxidative damage (9)
Glutathione: Antioxidant that’s essential for the proper function of the immune system, building and repair of tissues, and protection of cells from oxidative damage (10)
The ketogenic diet can affect your metabolism, fat breakdown, hormonal balance, kidney function, and energy levels (11).
Boosting the above nutrients with mushrooms will help you remain healthy throughout your keto journey.
Now, let’s look at a few delicious, keto-friendly mushroom recipes.
Why we love this recipe: It’s a simple, mostly hands-off recipe that’s packed with flavor, healthy fats and protein, and the mushroom superfood lion’s mane, which supports heart, brain, and gut health.
Mix the cheese into the turkey stuffing and cover the skillet for 1–2 minutes. Uncover and stir until all the cheese is melted and combined with the turkey.
Fill the inside of each mushroom cap with the turkey mixture and place them on a lined baking tray.
Bake for 10–12 minutes or until the mushroom edges are slightly browned.
Serve with freshly sliced avocado and a sprinkle of fresh parsley.
Expert Tip: If you want a meatier flavor and texture or more substantial portions, switch out the cremini mushrooms for portobellos.
These keto-friendly donut holes may just become your new favorite dessert snack.
Why we love this recipe: It’ll satisfy your sweet tooth craving while being fully keto-friendly and delivering brain health benefits, thanks to the lion’s mane mushroom.
3 tbsp of your fave sweetener e.g. monk fruit/xylitol
Cinnamon Sugar
3 tbsp of your fave sweetener
2 tbsp melted ghee or coconut oil
1 tbsp cinnamon
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350° F.
In a glass bowl, combine lion’s mane powder, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, almond flour, and sweetener. Mix until well combined.
Thoroughly mix in your wet ingredients—vanilla, egg, and coconut oil/ghee.
Refrigerate the dough for 10–15 minutes to make it more workable.
Roll the dough into 12 balls.
Bake on a parchment-lined baking tray for 15 minutes.
While they bake, make your cinnamon ‘sugar’ coating by mixing the sweetener and cinnamon.
After your keto donuts have cooled, dip each one in the melted coconut oil or ghee and roll in the cinnamon sugar mix.
"I love Lion's Mane in my morning coffee. It gives me energy, clarity, and focus and helps me be on point in my communication. It helps with recall and retention."
- Tammera
Blend all ingredients together until smooth. Top with black sesame seeds.
Do Keto the Healthy Way With Real Mushrooms
If you’re ready to ramp up your keto journey with the nutritional benefits of mushrooms, try the 100% certified organic range of mushroom supplements from Real Mushrooms.
Sima, P., Vannucci, L., & Vetvicka, V. (2018). β-glucans and cholesterol (Review). International journal of molecular medicine, 41(4), 1799–1808. https://doi.org/10.3892/ijmm.2018.3411
Hoffman, O. A., Olson, E. J., & Limper, A. H. (1993). Fungal beta-glucans modulate macrophage release of tumor necrosis factor-alpha in response to bacterial lipopolysaccharide. Immunology letters, 37(1), 19–25. https://doi.org/10.1016/0165-2478(93)90127-n
Chen, J., & Raymond, K. (2008). Beta-glucans in the treatment of diabetes and associated cardiovascular risks. Vascular health and risk management, 4(6), 1265–1272. https://doi.org/10.2147/vhrm.s3803
Minich, D. M., & Brown, B. I. (2019). A Review of Dietary (Phyto)Nutrients for Glutathione Support. Nutrients, 11(9), 2073. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu11092073
Batch, J. T., Lamsal, S. P., Adkins, M., Sultan, S., & Ramirez, M. N. (2020). Advantages and Disadvantages of the Ketogenic Diet: A Review Article. Cureus, 12(8), e9639. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.9639
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Real Mushrooms
Real Mushrooms is the premier provider of organic mushroom extracts, verified for the beneficial medicinal compounds like beta-glucans and free from starchy fillers like grains. With over 40 years of mushroom growing experience, Real Mushrooms prides itself on providing a transparent source of medicinal mushrooms that you can trust. All the information provided on our blog has been reviewed by our science and medical team.
