Know Foods Chocolate Chips Review & Ketone Test

Today: Know Foods Chocolate Chips review and blood glucose / blood ketone testing to see whether they spike blood sugar and whether they’re truly keto friendly…

Spoiler: they passed the “keto test” but with some interesting results! Interesting meaning: sorta sketchy – but ultimately fine. 🙂

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Why I Tested Know Foods Keto Chocolate Chips

The biggest reason I tested the Know Foods chocolate chips is because they’re delicious, they are zero net carbs, they are great in keto recipes that call for chocolate chips – and they melt down nice to make fat bombs and chocolate drizzles.

And they ARE keto friendly.

Meaning: they did not knock me out of ketosis.

I did the starting ketone/glucose testing live on video which you can watch on Facebook to see both the entire conversation and the discussion & comments.

I also embedded it here so you can listen in while you continue reading:

(We discussed a lot of fun keto topics while I was testing the chocolate chips, including my results with the Bunless Big Mac and the difference between two different foods with the same ingredient.)

The Story…

I recently had something knock me out of ketosis.

While I was testing from meal to meal, it was one of those situations where I couldn’t do a true “clean test” to determine exactly what it was.

I had a friend over for a long weekend, and as you can imagine I have an entire pantry FULL of keto products and ingredients to “play with” – so we baked up a variety of fun things to taste test and enjoy. 🙂

I’ll share what those things were with you as this story unfolds, and my opinion of them of course!

But given I had 5 different things over those 4 days that I had never eaten before… I had no idea what actually kicked me completely out of ketosis.

I went from normal ketone levels (1.7) to LO, which means the testing meter couldn’t detect ANY ketones in my bloodstream at all:

I use the Keto Mojo blood glucose & blood ketone testing kit. This is our 15% off discount link (the discount is coded into the link for you).

On this meter, anything 0.5 or above is IN ketosis. A “LO” reading means zero ketones detected, or: you’ve been knocked completely out! 😛

Normally I only test ONE thing at a time, which is what I always recommend: do a “clean test” on one new food, product or ingredient at a time.

While I was testing my blood glucose and blood ketone levels before and after these new meals throughout those four days, the numbers were all over the board and I couldn’t say with any confidence or certainty which product was the culprit.

After going through the hell of keto flu (yes, I still get that – even after 8 years of eating keto!) and getting my body back to normal – and back to baseline glucose & ketone levels… I decided to go back and test each of the ingredients/foods from that period – one at a time.

I started with what I thought was the most OBVIOUS culprit, and the one people question the most: Know Foods chocolate chips. People ask about Know Foods all the time, but specifically the sweetener they use which is newer – it’s called Allulose.

Allulose raises a lot of questions (and eyebrows!) because it’s usually still labeled as sugar on the nutrition facts, but it’s not actually sugar.

This was the first time I’d had the Know Foods zero net carb chocolate chips BUT they were used in a recipe, which wasn’t a fair test. I had other new foods & ingredients in the same few days too, which also made the results questionable.

The results being: I was completely knocked out of ketosis the next morning.

The chocolate chips SEEMED like the most obvious culprit given the timeline – so that’s where I started with my clean testing series this week…

Tip: never just guess! You might be cheating yourself out of a one pound bag of DELICIOUS chocolate chips that cost you ten bucks, lol. 😉

Speaking of cheating yourself…

The serving size is one tablespoon / 14 grams.

A tbsp is just not the same as 14 grams though, which is why I highly recommend you WEIGH your portions instead of measure them.

Otherwise you’re cheating yourself out of quite a few chocolate chips!

The same goes for nuts and other keto friendly foods that aren’t all the same size or weight, or simply don’t fit into a measuring spoon or measuring cup without spaces or air in between. And “air” isn’t one of your macros! 😉

I use an Ozeri Kitchen Scale. It’s small, inexpensive and super convenient.

With my chocolate chips measured out to exactly 14 grams (one serving), I started by testing both my glucose and ketone levels before I ate them.

My ketone levels were good: 1.2

My glucose levels were around my normal range: 88

Ketone Testing vs Glucose Testing

When you are “keto testing” foods it’s important to also test how they affect your glucose levels. Your blood sugar will spike before your ketone levels will fall, as blood sugar responds faster.

Glucose testing can be a quicker indicator of how foods are affecting you.

This is also the reason I do a 72 hour clean-eating phase after testing a new food, because ketone levels are slower to respond – and also to monitor any other results or effects, such as a food allergy or ingredient intolerance.

If your ketone levels are fine within a few hours and you ASSUME that food you tested is fine, then you eat something else that evening you haven’t had before or lately – and wake up with a rash the next morning, or some other weird symptom – you’d have NO way of knowing for sure what the REAL culprit was.

Note: If you want to learn more about ketone & glucose testing, see my video with the founder of Keto Mojo at: Ketones, Ketosis Levels & Bio-Individuality + Exogenous Ketones. I use their Keto Mojo Testing Kit and highly recommend it. This is our 15% off discount link

Next, I ate the Know Better Chocolate Chips…

If you watched the video then you already know it took me 10 minutes to eat them all, lol. You wouldn’t think a single TBSP of chocolate chips is that much chocolate… but I don’t snack or eat sweet things by themselves very often! 😛

Half an hour (30 minutes) after I ate the 14 grams of chocolate chips, I tested again – and my blood sugar had spiked by 10 points, from 88 to 98:

That was pretty interesting…

An hour after eating the chocolate chips, it was still a bit high at 94.

Even more interesting was the DROP in my ketone levels, from 1.2 to 0.5 within the hour:

Anything 0.5 or above is IN ketosis, so the chocolate chips didn’t knock me out of ketosis (or hadn’t yet) – they simply spiked my blood sugar by 10 points and dropped my ketone levels significantly within the first hour.

So far so good – or “okay” at least…

To make this a totally fair test, I ate a second serving of the chocolate chips.

Because let’s be honest: who eats ONE tablespoon of chocolate?! 😉

I melted a second serving (14 grams) with 1/2 (half) a tbsp of butter, and poured it over Lolli’s Peanut Butter Macadamia Keto Cookie Clusters.

Because that sounded delicious! And because I’ve already tested the cookie clusters: they test GREAT, and doesn’t have a negative impact on my glucose OR ketone levels.

Use coupon code LOWCARBTRAVELER for a discount at Lolli’s Low Carb Cookie Clusters.

I continued monitoring my ketone levels that evening, and they came up slightly (from 0.5 to 0.7) as the day went on.

I had a very simple dinner so as not to dilute the results: a half pound ground beef “hamburger steak” – basically a large 8oz seasoned hamburger patty, dipped in Duke’s mayonnaise. Zero carbs, and the proper ratio of protein/fat.

I tested again the next morning and I was still in ketosis, but still fairly low. Although that’s normal range for me in the mornings, and for most people. You’ll find your ketone levels are lowest in the morning about an hour after you wake up.

But I was still in ketosis the next morning after two servings of the chocolate chips!

This test was done at 7:30am the next morning, approximately one hour after I woke up.

To continue my clean testing, I duplicated the day before EXACTLY – having eggs for a late breakfast and another half pound hamburger steak for dinner.

That’s all I ate on Saturday.

Creating the exact same “food day” allowed me to continue monitoring glucose and ketone levels, and also not interfere with any other possible results or side effects I may have had to the chocolate chips – or to allulose, the sweetener used in the chips.

I tested my blood glucose and ketone levels before eating dinner. Your ketone levels will be highest during that time of day: in the late afternoon or early evening – before your evening meal.

My levels were back to baseline (normal) by this time, 24 hours after eating the 2 servings of Know Foods zero net carb chocolate chips:

My ketone level was 1.9

My blood glucose level was 89

Then I ate my half pound hamburger steak (again, just like the night before):

To give you a TRUE comparison, here is my blood glucose reading half hour after eating the hamburger steak:

As you can see, even with a high protein meal, my blood glucose levels did NOT spike half hour after eating like they did when I tested half hour after eating the Know Foods Chocolate Chips.

With the chocolate chips, my glucose spiked 10 points. With the half pound hamburger patty & mayo, it just dropped a little within the hour.

My baseline blood glucose level is 85, btw.

Why This Matters

This was a true “clean test” for a full 24 hours. I have continued to eat clean (very simple foods, already tested and known not to affect my glucose or ketone levels) since eating the chocolate chips.

Was I sick of eggs and hamburger?

YES. I was crabby about it too. 😛

lol

But this is what you have to do if you REALLY want to know whether a food is truly keto friendly or not. You can’t just go by what someone says, or what you read on the internet, otherwise you’d be ruling out pretty much everything except grassfed beef. 😛

And even that, depending on what you’re reading!

Life is meant to be LIVED and food is meant to be ENJOYED.

The purpose of this testing (for me) is to find the WIDEST variety of foods I can enjoy while maintaining nutritional ketosis and losing weight and/or maintaining my weight.

If you’re just eating low carb to lose weight, none of this may matter to you.

If you’re Type 1 or Type 2 diabetic, epileptic, or staying in nutritional ketosis for any other health reason, then this should very much matter to you.

If your weight loss has stalled, your weight just bounces around, you’re having weird symptoms or health issues… this should also matter to you.

The bottom line on the Know Foods Chocolate Chips…

As I write this, it has now been 43 hours since I ate the Know Foods chocolate chips.

The only thing I ate since then was a hamburger steak that night, then cheesy eggs and a hamburger steak again yesterday. That’s it.

For breakfast today I had raw pecans and zero carb pimento cheese (also previously ketone-tested). Because I’m sick of eggs, lol.

Interestingly, both my blood glucose and blood ketone levels are fluctuating a bit this morning. That could be for any number of reasons though, so I’ll continue eating clean and testing…

But wait – so what knocked me out of ketosis?!

If the Know Foods chocolate chips didn’t knock me out of ketosis, what DID knock me flat out of ketosis before?!

That’s the question I’m left with.

To find out, my next test will be on the recipe the chips were used in – minus the chips. It was low carb cookies WITH the know chips. So this morning I baked a batch of the cookies without the chips.

So my next test is the cookies alone. And if those pass glucose/ketone testing, I will add the Know chocolate to them and test them together.

I’m particularly interested in not only ruling in or out BOTH products, but whether combining the two products (or perhaps combining the two sweeteners used in each) has a different impact than each product individually. 😉

And if those two tests fare well, it’s back to one of the other recipes we tried that weekend, and back to the finger pricking!

Quick Note on Different Ketone Levels

Being in ketosis is like being pregnant: you are or you aren’t. Period. (no pun 🤣 intended lol)

Different levels don’t necessarily mean that much. You’ll see lower levels in the early morning and higher levels later in the day before your evening meal.

Watch the short videos on the Keto Mojo website to learn more.

The purpose of testing is to find out what YOUR baseline numbers are, which will be unique to you. That’s “bio-individuality” which we discussed in this video.

Finding out that the Know chips, or maybe Allulose (the sweetener) spiked my blood sugar slightly – and temporarily – is good to know. I’ll have to test other products that use Allulose, and Allulose alone too, to get finer details on what causes what.

But the bottom line is that the Know Foods chocolate chips did NOT knock me out of ketosis. They were also delicious. 🙂

I don’t think I would eat more than two servings of them in one day though, given my results. But they are great for making fat bombs, or making a chocolate drizzle on your granola/cookie clusters – yogurt, or berries, or whatever you please.

And of course for baking!

Speaking of… I am off to check on those cookies. 🙂

You can check out their product line and/or ingredients here:

Know Foods, Gluten Free & Low Carb Products

I am going to KEEP the Know Foods Chocolate Chips in my pantry, but I am also going to continue testing with the different ways I use them.

Stay tuned as I test this batch of chipless cookies… and ultimately find out (hopefully!) what knocked me out of ketosis, and which product or combination of products we should avoid…

Thoughts or Questions on Know Foods products or Ketone/Glucose Testing – or my methods of keto testing foods?

I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Based on my results, would you eat the chips – or not eat the chips?

Leave a comment and let’s chat!:)

Best,
Lynn Terry,
aka @LowCarbTraveler

 

 

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