The ketogenic diet is a high fat diet that drastically restricts your intake of carbs to around 50 grams per day.
To achieve this, the diet requires you to cut out or severely limit your intake of carb-rich foods, including grains, legumes, starchy vegetables, and fruit.
Though tomatoes are commonly considered a vegetable, they’re botanically a fruit, causing some to wonder whether they can be included on a ketogenic diet
Although raw tomatoes are considered keto-friendly, not all tomato products are.
For instance, many store-bought tomato products, such as tomato paste, tomato sauce, salsa, tomato juice, and even canned tomatoes, contain added sugars.
This significantly raises their total carb content, making them more difficult to fit into a ketogenic diet.
Therefore, be sure to check the ingredient label when purchasing a tomato-based product and avoid those containing extra sugar.
Sundried tomatoes are another tomato-based food that may be considered less keto-friendly than raw tomatoes.
Due to their low water content, they end up containing around 23.5 grams of net carbs per cup (54 grams), which is significantly more than the same serving of raw tomatoes.
For this reason, you likely need to limit how many sundried tomatoes you eat while following a ketogenic diet.
Tomato-based products, such as sauces, juices, and canned tomatoes, may contain added sugars, making them less suitable for a ketogenic diet. Sundried tomatoes may also be considered less keto-friendly than their raw counterparts.
A ketogenic diet requires you to severely restrict your intake of all carb-rich foods, including fruit.
Though botanically a fruit, raw tomatoes are considered keto-friendly, as they contain significantly fewer carbs than the same quantity of fruit.
The same cannot be said of sundried tomatoes, as well as many other prepackaged tomato-based products, which are often sweetened with sugar.
When in doubt, always check the food label to determine whether a certain food fits in with your keto diet.