Will “whipping cream” or “half-and-half” work for keto? Does it have to be “heavy whipping cream”?
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Will “whipping cream” or “half-and-half” work for keto? Does it have to be “heavy whipping cream”?

Whipping cream can work, it just has a lower fat content. Lower fat content means more lactose (the natural sugar in milk and milk products) which may make ketosis more difficult. Half-and-half has even lower fat and more lactose. For that reason, we typically don’t recommend. If you are using Keto Chow simply for a meal (and not as part of a ketogenic lifestyle), and whipping crem or half-and-half works for you, that’s great!

Here are the calories and carbohydrate content for a 15ml/1 tablespoon “serving”:

fat %caloriescarbscarbs/400 calories
Skim Milk0.0850.7658.35
2% Milk1.9880.7338.40
Whole Milk3.2590.7231.47
Half-and-half11.5200.6513.13
Light/Table cream19.1290.557.51
Whipping cream30.9440.444.05
Heavy whipping cream36.1510.433.34
Darigold “Classic 4040.0600.402.67
Butter81.11020.010.03

Interestingly enough, all of the creams have less than 1g of carbs per “serving” so the package will say “0g total carbs” – even though the half-and-half has nearly 4x as many carbs per calorie compared to heavy cream. You have to muck around the USDA food database to get accurate nutrition information.