Being low-carb/ketogenic can be hard enough when you are living your life as normal at home. So, although (because being keto/low-carb has helped me regain my health so much that I can finally travel again!) I have written a blog specifically about how to stay low-carb/keto while travelling, I wanted to have a page dedicated to a set of travel-friendly products that makes it possible to stay healthy/in ketosis. I have experimented a lot with various products during my own travels, so hopefully this page and these products save you some time!
The Trouble with Most Travel-Friendly Keto/Low-Carb Products
There are two complications with finding travel-friendly keto/low-carb products. First, because keto is a whole foods way of eating, it eliminates processed food. And, a travel-friendly bar in a wrapper is the epitome of “processed food” because there will be not only a host of preservatives but also all sorts of added goodies that make it not optimal for human consumption. (I’m being serious here! Remember to always look at the ingredient list!) Furthermore, due to ketogenic nutrition being focused on whole foods, this means that many quality, “strict” keto/low-carb products need to be refrigerated (e.g. cheese, meat sticks, nuts – yes, raw nuts should be refrigerated to prevent their oils from turning rancid!) or at least kept at a reasonable temperature (e.g. olive oil, butter, hard-boiled eggs).
Second, even if it is a product that says it’s keto-friendly/low-carb, most travel-friendly products I have found contain some sort of sugar. Although Stevia and Erithrytol (brand-name Swerve) are the two keto-friendly sweeteners that do not create a glucose or insulin response because they are non-nutritive sweeteners, I and many others find that their sweet taste triggers further sugar cravings (not to mention the stomach upset that many report after consuming such sugars). This tendency for even such keto-friendly sugars to trigger sugar cravings is, in fact, supported by science. This is because your body tastes the sweetness but, because they do not create a glucose or insulin response, they are without the caloric value, and your body persists in craving the “end-result” of typical sugar, the glucose response and then the release of insulin to clear the sweetness from your bloodstream. So, needless to say, I don’t want to (and I don’t encourage others to) even go there!
A Comparison of the Best Travel-Friendly Keto/Low-Carb Snacks
Because of these challenges, I have found that keto-friendly/low-carb nut butters are the essential travel-friendly snack for the following reasons:
- They can be used not only to break your fast (if you are doing intermittent fasting) but can also be a snack in themselves
- They only have one ingredient
- They do not contain any sugars (even keto-friendly ones like Stevia and Erithrytol)
- They do not need to be refrigerated
- They are easily portable and not messy
- They are naturally low-carb
- They provide you with a healthy dose of Omega-3 Fatty Acids that comes in nuts which are important for healthy functioning anyway
- They cost the same (if not are cheaper!) than other low-carb/keto-friendly bars
- Ummm…They are tasty!
If you are anything like me (or also have a history of severe reactive hypoglycemia), you may be concerned that a pack of nut butter, usually a 1oz serving, isn’t enough. Prior to my healing from hypoglycemia, given that I had to have massive meals at least every 3 hours in order to avoid being sick, I would have shared your concern! But, when you are ketogenic in your way of eating, you have the metabolic flexibility that allows your body to use its own clean-burning and ever-available fat for fuel.
But, the concern is valid. So, when exploring this concern as I continue my own journey with food, I compared such nut butters to the best quality portable snacks that I could find: Keto Bars, Kiss My Keto bars. Given that my hypoglycemia required me to keep at least two meal bars with me at a time, I was used to having to do this. And, what did I find? The portable keto-friendly bars have ESSENTIALLY IDENTICAL macronutrients to the nut butters.
| Product | Calories* | Fat | Protein | Total Carbs | Net Carbs** |
| “F-Bomb” Macadamia Nut Butter | 215 | 22 | 2 | 4 | 1 |
| “Once Again” Almond Butter | 210 | 18 | 7 | 6 | 3 |
| “Keto Bars” Dairy-free Chocolate Peanut Butter | 250 | 21 | 8 | 13 | 7 |
| “Kiss My Keto” Chocolate Coconut | 240 | 20 | 9 | 16 | 5 |
* I include calories not because they matter while you are keto, but because they are a unit of measurement of energy and will represent how much a product will fuel the body.
**I calculate net carbs by subtracting the fiber from the “Total Carbohydrate” count. This is how I recommend people to calculate carbs because sugar alcohols, even if they are subtracted from “Total Carbohydrates” on the nutrition label and aren’t included in the “Net Carb” amount, can still affect people like carbohydrates. (Again, read your labels to catch this sneaky trick!) I also do it this way here because, although not all countries even list “sugar alcohols” on packages (e.g. South Africa), the U.S. does.
So, as you can see, nut butters by FAR win the race for The best keto/low-carb travel-friendly snack!
Because they don’t include ANY sugars, are non-GMO, vegetarian/vegan, have only one ingredient, gluten-free, and dairy-free, the two that I use and recommend are:
- “F-Bombs” (which stands for Fat Bombs) by Love you Foods, LLC – which include flavors like “Macadamia with Sea Salt,” “Macadamia Pecan with Sea Salt,” and “Macadamia with Coconut”
- Once Again’s Organic Almond Butter squeeze packs
There are two other reasons why I use and recommend these products specifically. First, “F-Bombs” also makes travel-packs of keto-freindly oils, like avocado oil, MCT oil, macadamia nut oil, coconut oil, olive oil, and their “house blend” that includes Brazil nut oil. This makes travelling a cinch if you get the oils, too, because then you don’t have to travel with messy oil that you pack yourself! Yikes!
Also, if you are low-carb/Paleo and aren’t ketogenic specifically, Once Again makes a travel-sized peanut butter, which you can find here. Please remember, however, that peanuts are actually a legume (and not a nut!) and around 95% of the population has an auto-immune response to the Aflotoxin that naturally occurs with the mold found on peanuts (although the Once Again’s Organic Peanut Butter is the ONLY peanut butter I have found that I can eat – when I am craving a special treat – and not feel sick after, which I suspect is because they check for this toxin at least three times before the nut butter actually hits the jar).
Other Great Low-Carb/Keto Travel Snacks
If you are feeling stuck and want some more creative options for snacks, the following is a list to get you started. Also, consider signing up for a subscription services with a company like, The Keto Box, who will sent you cutting-edge keto-friendly products monthly in order to help you learn what helpful (and delicious!) products are out there. But, as always, remember to read those ingredient and nutrition labels to make sure that the ingredients and nutrients work for the style of low-carb you are living!
- Pork Rinds
- Olives (packaged, like these)
- Meat sticks
- Nuts (if they don’t get too hot)
- Pickles
- Bone broth (while making your own is by far the most tasty, Kettle and Fire makes a great quality travel-sized 16oz packages)