The Slow-Carb Diet Food List

The Slow-Carb Diet Food List

You’ll find the first answer to this question around page 90 (depending on your edition). There’s a list of 16 foods, and your meals should include one thing from each of the three types of food.

Proteins

• 1 or 2 eggs with egg whites
• chicken breast/thigh
• beef
• fish (tilapia, halibut, salmon)
• pork

Legumes

• lentils
• various kinds of bean (pinto, red, soy, black…)

Vegetables

• greens (spinach, chard, kale, collards)
• mixed vegetables
• cabbages (kimchi, saurkraut)
• asparagus
• peas
• cruciferous veggies (broccoli, cauliflower)
• green beans

That doesn’t sound like a lot, but really with just those foods, you can make over 160 different meals (nearly 2 months) without repeating one. Start by asking yourself this question: do you eat 160 meals before repeating one?

The list in the book is pretty small, sure, but it certainly was never meant to be exclusive.

Other foods not on the list

Although you can limit your diet to just the foods in that list, I don’t believe you have to. In fact, I lose weight eating foods that aren’t explicitly on the list but are definitely included in the categories.

Proteins
Tim says lean meats, but it’s OK if it’s not. Judging by some of his comments about organic vs. not organic, it seems like his concern is less in the fat of the cut and more the non-organic materials that make their ways into the fat.

Legumes
These are the tricky ones, but only because people might not know what a legume is (although if you’ve been on this diet for three days you are *well* acquainted with them).

One legume I added when I wanted to eat more asian food that usually has noodles was the mung bean sprout. Mung sprouts are the thicker ones (I believe the stringy sprouts are soy).

You can also try adding soy nuts once in a while. They will give a nice crunch to a salad, and now that I think about it maybe even a vegetable dish. I’ll have to try that.

Vegetables
Let’s be clear: broccoli and cauliflower are vegetables; corn and potatoes are not.

Other veggies I eat that aren’t on the list: summer squash, cucumbers & zucchini, tomatoes (especially in salsa), eggplant, onions, peppers, bok choy, and spaghetti squash.

Other stuff
Despite what it says about artificial sweeteners, you’ll also find sugar-free Jell-O listed as OK, specifically for your late-night hunger pangs. No more than 12oz of diet soda a day is also approved.

One of my favorite go-to snacks is natural peanut butter. Jiff and Skippy are not on this list. Smucker’s makes a really good natural peanut butter, but my favorite is Archer Farms (I think that’s the Target brand). When I get hungry between meals, I will eat a tablespoon or two of peanut butter. Make sure yours has at most two ingredients: peanuts and salt.

Other handy snack options are various seeds like pumpkin, watermelon, and nuts. Be careful with these guys though, because they are very calorie-dense.