The latest diet trend and an alternative pancake syrup

One of the many diets you might have heard people following is the ketogenic or “keto” diet. However, is it a safe diet to use?

The keto diet is a high fat, moderate protein and low carbohydrate diet. It has been a treatment for those with epilepsy since the 1920s as it can help reduce seizures. Today, anti-seizure medications are more commonly used. The diet does not allow fruits, some vegetables, grains, potatoes, sweets, or other high carbohydrate foods. The main purpose of the diet is to create ketones to get fuel into your cells instead of glucose. Excess ketone production results in ketosis.

While the keto diet may help you lose weight, it is a difficult diet to stick with in the long run. You miss out on beneficial nutrients from fruits, vegetables and grains. Once ketosis sets in, a rapid loss of “water weight” occurs which is not successful weight loss. And, in the long run, this type of diet can lead to eating disorders.

Walnut syrup and birch syrup

While maple syrup rules on many breakfast tables, walnut syrup or birch syrup may be an alternative. It is not common knowledge that syrup is tapped from walnut trees or birch trees. Therefore, currently, the market is small.

Birch syrup has an intense fruity molasses flavor. It takes about 150 to 200 gallons of birch sap to equal on gallon syrup. It is quite expensive at $350 to $400 per gallon due to the expensive and time-consuming process. Walnut syrup has a nutty butterscotch flavor and is much like a light maple syrup.