Can or should you eat carrots on a low-carb diet? This will largely depend on how low you are keeping your carbs. If you are keeping them in the 20-30 g/day range (ketosis) then probably not, but if you are keeping them in the 70-80g./day range then it is probably fine to eat some. Here is the breakdown of half a bag of organic baby carrots, which equals 2½ servings:
Food |
Serving size |
Total Carbs |
Fiber |
Net Carbs |
Protein |
Fat |
Baby carrots |
½ bag (8 oz) |
20 |
5 |
15 |
2.5 |
0 |
As you can see, a fairly large serving of carrots does not have a high amount of useable carbohydrates. For comparison, a 1 cup (8oz) serving of brown rice would have about 40 net carbs.
A final thing about carrots is how fast the carbs in them get digested. This is referring to its glycemic index (GI) rating, which for carrots is about 40. 1 This is a low to moderate ranking (rankings run from 20 to 100). It is typically thought that carrots have a high GI, but recent research has over turned this. 1 As we mentioned in S.P.E.E.D., it is good, for weight loss and health, to keep the overall GI of your diet low. So, the conclusion here is that eating some carrots is okay as long you do not go over you specific carb intake goal.
1-Brand-Miller, J. (2008). International tables of glycemic index and glycemic load values: 2008. Diabetes Care; 31(12): 2281-283.