Before I started on keto, I used to go on food benders. I would eat junk food for days – fast food, chocolate, chips, baked goods. There wouldn’t be a vegetable in sight. We used to joke that if I didn’t soon eat something healthy, I’d get scurvy. I wasn’t serious; I figured it was a disease of the past. So, imagine my surprise when one of the questions I received was actually, “Can keto give you scurvy?”
What is Scurvy?
Well, let’s look at what scurvy is. Scurvy is a serious and potentially fatal disease that comes from a lack of vitamin C. It leads to exhaustion, spontaneous bleeding, pain in your limbs, swelling, ulceration of your gums and loss of teeth. Scurvy is fatal if it is not treated. When I think of scurvy, I think of the sailors from long ago who went to sea for months at a time and didn’t have access to fresh fruit or vegetables. It was also a major factor during the Irish potato famine and the American civil war. But it does occasionally still happen in countries that experience droughts. There was an outbreak in Afghanistan in 2002.
So why do people think that the keto diet can give you scurvy? Well, there is a misconception that we eat bacon and eggs all day with no fruit or vegetables at all. Bill and I both feel it is extremely important to use your carbs allotted wisely for vegetables that are packed with nutrients and vitamins. We may not get as much of a variety of foods that have vitamin C, but we actually eat more vegetables now than we ever did because it is a part of our keto lifestyle.
Can Keto Give You Scurvy With Enough Vitamin C
What has vitamin C in it? One source is potatoes. We are not getting that on our keto diet. But you may be surprised that many of the vegetables on our “yes” list in our lifestyle are ones that are also on the list of higher levels of vitamin C. Some of these vegetables include:
Broccoli, Cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts. Also Green peppers, Cabbage, and Kale.
The few fruits that we are able to fit into our keto diet are also high in vitamin C, including blackberries, lemons, and strawberries. Thyme and parsley are herbs that have this essential vitamin as well.
How Much Vitamin C?
How much vitamin C should you take in? You see supplements that are hundreds or even thousands of milligrams in a tablet. The actual amount you should take, according to Harvard Health Publishing is 75 mg for women and 95 mg for men. The most you should take in a day is 2,000 mg. Our body will flush out what we don’t need, but it’s just not necessary to take a supplement that provides 3,000 mg of vitamin C a day!
One cup of broccoli has 4 grams of carbs and gives you 40 mg of vitamin C. That’s over half of what a woman would need in a day. Cauliflower is even higher in the vitamin with 52 mg in a cup. We can safely say we get enough vitamin C in the run of a day that we are not going to get scurvy.
So… Can Keto Give You Scurvy?
So what is up with this question? Is it a real question, or is it a judgement of what we eat on keto? For some people, it may be an actual concern, but I think it is mostly a reflection of what people think keto is and the misconceptions they have around it. If it is a true concern, do a little research and pick the keto-friendly vegetables that have the higher concentration of vitamin C in them when you do your meal plan.
If you are still worried, take a supplement – just make sure there isn’t carbs in the supplement. I did a rant on carbs in the medicine and supplements we take you can read. And if you are just putting judgement on those of us who do keto, do some reading or keep on scrolling.
Wendy
