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Kombucha on Keto: Is It a Good Idea or Should It Be Avoided?

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Let me guess. You’ve either seen kombucha at your local Whole Foods Market or your friend won’t stop yapping on about it.

Maybe you’ve even tried it.

And now you’re curious to learn what the heck you’re drinking, why it smells like vinegar and if it’s normal to have some weird floaty things swirling around in it.

But the biggest question you probably want answered is whether it’s keto-friendly and if you can ever drink kombucha on a keto diet.

Kombucha keto

Lucky for you, these questions and more will be answered in today’s guide. You’ll learn:

What is Kombucha?

Don’t be intimidated by the unusual name. Kombucha (pronounced kômˈbo͞oCHə) is simply a fermented tea.

It starts out with a sweet tea base (usually a combination of black or green tea and sugar). Then a SCOBY, or Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast, is added — and that’s how all the magic happens.

This SCOBY lives in the tea and floats around like a super thick, legless jellyfish for a few weeks.

It’s the crucial ingredient that ferments and transforms the sweet tea into a probiotic-rich, naturally carbonated masterpiece.

Because of this fermentation process, kombucha shares similar gut-balancing properties as healthy fermented foods like unpasteurized kimchi and sauerkraut, miso soup and traditionally made (lacto-fermented) pickles.

And that’s only the beginning of its health claims.

The Health Benefits of Fermented Drinks

You just learned that kombucha is essentially a sweet tea packed with bacteria.

Sounds super gross, right? So why are people drinking this stuff?

It’s not a new trend. Kombucha, and similar fermented drinks, have been around for centuries. And thanks to everyone’s growing obsession with probiotics and gut health, fermented foods and drinks are growing in popularity — especially here in the states.

The bacteria and yeast combination found in these fermented foods and drinks may help balance gut bacteria, helping populations of “good” bacteria thrive and crowd out “bad” gut bacteria [*].

Poor diets, stress, pollution, monthly hormonal fluctuations and even drinking alcohol and caffeine can throw off the natural balance of your gut bacteria.

When you have too much “bad” bacteria here, you’ll usually suffer from uncomfortable digestive issues and other irritating symptoms such as:

  • Gas and bloating
  • Persistent diarrhea
  • Constipation
  • Candida overgrowth
  • Bladder infections

To combat these unwanted side effects, rebalancing your gut bacteria levels is necessary so that you have a healthy mix of good and bad bacteria.

You can do that, in part, by eating and drinking fermented foods such as kombucha since they contain probiotics along with antimicrobial, bacteria-fighting properties.

As for the specific health benefits associated with kombucha, the current research has only been done on rats — but so far it’s promising.

Here’s what scientists discovered in animal studies:

  • It may help treat or prevent prostate cancer[*]
  • It reduced cholesterol levels[*]
  • It helped diabetic rats decrease their blood sugar levels[*]

There’s plenty of anecdotal (first-person accounts) of kombucha’s benefits, too.  If you ask die-hard kombucha fans, they’ll swear that it’s helped them with:

  • Hangovers
  • Boosting sluggish metabolisms
  • Reducing kidney stones
  • Improving energy levels
  • Restoring homeostasis in the body
  • Reduced sugar cravings
  • ladder infections

While these benefits of kombucha tea may be true, they haven’t been proven in humans at this point. That also brings us to another dilemma.

If you’re in ketosis or trying to reach it, is kombucha even okay to drink?

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Will Kombucha Knock You Out of Ketosis?

Just like with dairy, kombucha is keto friendly, with a few exceptions. Before we dive into those, there’s one key understanding to sort out here.

How It’s Made Matters

We already mentioned that kombucha is made from a sweet tea base. If you know anything about sweet tea, you know it’s loaded with sugar.

Does this mean kombucha is some magical keto loophole?

Not exactly.

The SCOBY actually feeds off the mountain of sugar that’s added to the tea. This is what it thrives on for weeks and how it has the energy to ferment in the first place. Sugar gives all forms of life energy.

Lucky for keto-ers, the SCOBY is also what burns through all the sugar that’s initially added.

What’s left is a low sugar, low carb drink that’s fairly easy on the palate if you don’t mind a hint of vinegar.

There’s no getting around this slight tart, vinegary taste. And for newbie kombucha drinkers, it can be off putting.

Because of this, many commercial brands of kombucha choose to do what’s known as a double fermentation process where different flavors and fruits are added. This updated mixture sits for a few more weeks to ferment further.

This time, the end result is not keto friendly!

These versions of kombucha are loaded with both carbs and sugar. So if you drink them, you’ll definitely be kicked out of ketosis.

If you’re careful to only consume low carb brands and flavors of kombucha, you’ll typically only see a slight shift in your ketone levels and they should return to normal within a few hours. Meaning, you can totally enjoy kombucha in moderation on a keto diet.

However, that’s only if you also consider the nutritional breakdown before doing so — and adjust your food intake accordingly.

How to Enjoy Kombucha on a Ketogenic Diet

Many store bought bottles of kombucha actually contain two servings. So if you’re not taking this into account, you could end up reaching half your carb count for the entire day in just one bottle — even if it’s unflavored.

Take this extremely popular kombucha for example[*]:

Kombucha keto

In just half the bottle, you’ll sip on 12 grams of carbs and 2 grams of sugar — and that’s in a raw, unflavored kombucha.

Just for fun, here’s what one flavored option that contains both stevia and sugar would give you:

Kombucha keto

Notice that this brand’s flavored version has less carbs than the other one’s unflavored option yet it still packs 6 grams of extra sugar due to the sweet fruit that’s been added.

This popular mango flavor comes in at 12 grams of carbs and 10 grams of sugar for half the bottle:

Kombucha keto

As you can see, if you’re going to add kombucha to your low carb life, you need to pay attention to the labels and serving sizes before you purchase any store bought options.

So how much kombucha can you drink on a keto diet?

Since you’re counting your macros diligently, you  should have no more than a  half serving of a lower carb kombucha every once in a while.

That would contain about 3.5 grams of carbs.

Keto-Friendly Kombucha and Other Fermented Drinks

Reaching for a low -carb kombucha tea option, like Health-Ade, is key. But kombucha isn’t your only option for sipping down nice dose of gut-friendly probiotics.

Kevita makes a tasty Lemon Cayenne fermented probiotic drink that’s similar to kombucha without all the carbs.

It has the sweet taste of lemonade (thanks to stevia, an acceptable low carb keto diet sweetener) with a kick of spiciness and half a serving only costs you 1 gram of carbs, 1 gram of sugar and 5 calories.

This means you could safely enjoy the whole bottle.

See for yourself[*]:

Kombucha keto

Suja also has a probiotic drink that’s similar to a pink lemonade and perfect for your post-yoga thirst or summertime lemonade swap.

It contains stevia and for the entire bottle you’ll only fork over 5 grams of carbs, 0 grams of sugar, and 20 calories[*]:

Kombucha keto

The best part is, when you’re in ketosis, sugar usually tastes 10x sweeter than usual, so you probably won’t even need to drink the whole bottle in one sitting to feel satisfied.

Another great keto-friendly kombucha option is this one that’s mixed with chia seeds[*]:

Kombucha keto

Thanks to those powerful little fiber–packed seeds, the net carb count of this kombucha drops down to 4 grams per 8-ounce serving. It also delivers 3 grams of fat and 2 grams of protein, which the other varieties don’t offer.

There’s one more way to cut the carb count of kombucha to virtually zero, but it involves a bit more work.

Homebrewing Kombucha: First-timers Beware

Buying kombucha may be more expensive than water or soda, but buying it here and there won’t necessarily break your budget. A bottle can run you anywhere from $3 to $7 depending on where you live.

But if you consume it enough, you’ll quickly blow through your budget.

That’s why many kombucha devotees turn to homebrewing.

Not only can this help you produce your own supply very quickly and cheaply, it can also help you drastically slash your kombucha’s carb count.

The longer the mixture has to sit and ferment, the less sugars will end up in the final product. So you can maintain a much better level of carb control when you brew kombucha at home.

But before you run off to buy a homebrewing kit, there are a few important things to consider.

For one, you’re dealing with bacteria here.

If the slightest bit of contamination comes into contact with your SCOBY or your brewed tea, it can make you really sick — like food poisoning sick[*].

Not only that, it can be hard for inexperienced brewers to decipher what’s healthy bacteria growth and what’s potentially harmful.

A good rule of thumb: if you notice anything that looks like the moldy  fuzz you’d find on bread, your SCOBY has been contaminated and should be tossed ASAP.

The next challenge to homebrewing is controlling the temperature.

For the SCOBY to grow safely, it needs to be in an environment that’s around 68–86 degrees Fahrenheit.

From my homebrewing experience, I live in a normally hot climate where my house hovers around 75–76 degrees all day. We hit an unexpected cold front and the house dropped to around 67–68 degrees overnight.

While I was enjoying the cooler temps, my SCOBY was in major jeopardy of not only dying but turning into a germ-filled cesspool. I quickly had to wrap it in towels and put a heater on it just to get it to a safer temperature.

Fortunately, this whole process didn’t take long and the SCOBY was saved. But it’s definitely something to consider.

If you can’t maintain a healthy environment that’s consistently between 68–86 degrees, homebrewing kombucha may not be right for you.

Keep in mind, your kombucha mixture also needs to live in a dark place for a few weeks and it cannot be disturbed.

Do you have an out-of-the-way space like this where your SCOBY can go untouched for weeks?

And are you able to keep everything germ-free for months on end?

Your SCOBY cannot come into contact with any other forms of bacteria so you will constantly be cleaning things.

You’ll need to repeatedly wash your containers, bottles, hands and surfaces and then ensure everyone in your house follows the same rules.

There are two more issues that I ran into with homebrewing.

#1: The SCOBY Hotel

Each time you brew a batch of kombucha, your mother SCOBY produces a baby.

You can use these two SCOBYs to brew two more batches or to brew a batch and create a SCOBY hotel.

A SCOBY hotel is simply a place where all of your SCOBYs live before they’re added to new batches.

What most people don’t realize is that the SCOBYs end up multiplying really fast.

After two batches, I had a full blown SCOBY hotel and they just kept multiplying.

Now you’re talking about additional storage, more maintenance to keep the hotel thriving and safe from bacteria and more supplies. Basically, everything tripled overnight.

This means that your time investment will also go up significantly, which you need to be prepared for.

You’ll need to brew, bottle, consume and rebrew on a consistent basis.

Personally, this became too much work and it was something I could not maintain, even if it was cost effective. It required so much work and cleaning — lots of cleaning.

But this helped me learn another important lesson about homebrewing:

#2: Kombucha is Not Right For Everyone

After homebrewing for months, I found out the hard way that the kombucha was flaring up my asthma and allergy symptoms.

Turns out, for some people, the yeast in fermented foods can aggravate allergies and may trigger an asthma attack in the same way environmental allergens do.

So whether it’s keto-friendly or not, if you have these types of issues, kombucha can make things worse.

In the end, it may or may not be right for you to consume, but only you and your doctor can make that decision.

Enjoy Kombucha on Keto

Kombucha tea can definitely be a keto-friendly beverage option on a ketogenic diet — provided you take time to check out the nutrition label.

Select only brands that contain low enough carb and sugar counts to stay in line with your daily macronutrient goals. Or if you’re even more committed, try your hand at home brewing kombucha to reduce the carb and sugar count even lower.

For those readers in this boat, use this tried-and-tested recipe from The Kombucha Shop[*][*]:

Ingredients

  • 10 cups of filtered water
  • 1 cup of sugar
  • 3 tablespoons caffeinated black, green or oolong loose leaf tea
  • SCOBY

Instructions

  • Bring 4 cups of filtered water to a boil, take this off the heat, and then add the tea.
  • Let this infuse for anywhere between 5-7 minutes.
  • Once that’s done, add the cup of sugar and stir until dissolved.
  • From here, you’ll need to add about 6 cups of cold filtered water to your jar to cool the entire mix off.
  • When the jar’s temperature drops down to the 68-84 F range, you can then add your SCOBY, stir, and test the pH level.
  • If your pH level is 4.5 or lower, you can then cover your container with a cotton cloth and let it ferment for approximately 7-9 days before taste testing.
  • For a stronger brew, let the mix sit longer. And if the vinegary taste is not your thing, stick to the 7-9 window.

But that doesn’t mean you have to drink kombucha either.

If you don’t like the taste or if you’re like me and have asthma, kombucha and other fermented foods may not be the right choice for you. The key is to find out what works for your body and run with that.

And don’t be entranced by the health claims just yet. Until we have more conclusive research on how kombucha affects human health, the kombucha craze is best met with cautious optimism.

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14 thoughts on “Kombucha on Keto: Is It a Good Idea or Should It Be Avoided?

  1. I drink kombucha on a daily basis and just started keto two weeks ago so was very interested in your articles stance on this. I 100% agree that it isn’t for everyone but for me personally half a bottle of this stuff a day has replaced my morning coffee and truly has helped with stomach issues I was experiencing. I can’t find a date attached to when this article was written but I believe the nutrition facts on gt’s synergy triolgy are out of date and could use a refresh as to not confuse readers on the calories and carb count which are currently much much lower. Like you mention Kombucha is VERY pricey so I appreciate all your homebrewing tips! Thinking of giving it a go soon and will definitely reference this article when the time arises.

  2. Do you know what the carb levels are if you brew your own kombucha? I know the scoby “eats” the sugar, but how does that affect the carbs in the end product? Can synthetic sugars be used? Or agave?

  3. Have to agree with the above commenter. I had a possible staph infection in a place near my brain so they put me on high powered antibiotics. Those killed my gut. After … while in ketosis, I concentrated on probiotics AND fermented food. Kombucha has one of those bacteria that can target Cdiff. The first few days, I drank a half bottle a day. 4-8 ounces a day. Sipped throughout the day. (GTs was one of them). I shifted my carbs around for the day and always stayed under 20g (non net, I only count WHOLE carbs). I did fine. I stayed in ketosis and lost weight. I am still healing my gut, but it is hard to continually give up 10-12g carbs per day so I drink about 2 oz of kombucha a day. I also make my own. — I think one has to find their balance. I would much rather drink and “spend” my carbs on kombucha then some of these silly low carb bars/breads/tortillas etc that are out there today. I believe the benefits are very strong here for the bacteria in the kombucha.

  4. Nice article, except I would not ask any MD doctors about this. They most likely would discourage drinking Kombucha and additionaly most medical doctors know zilch about nutrition and diet. lol

  5. I home-brew. So I use as little sugar as possible, 7/8th of a cup per gallon brew. But I also 2nd ferment using strawberries, et al. I let it go until it really fizzy. I love kombucha, but I love my Keto diet more. I can’t determine the carbs in my brew, but I there a way to test it for carbs? I drink 8ozs per day, most days, hate to give it up. It’s my beer replacement.

  6. I’ve been brewing for a couple of years now and brew a 2gal continuous brew. I searched the internet because was thinking of trying a Keto diet, but I sure didn’t want to give up my booch; but as I thought once it’s well fermented it would have nearly no sugar left. I also enjoy a 2nd ferment using fresh fruit which is likely to contain more sugar, but if you are using fruit like blueberries which are allowed on Keto, I’d think it would be the same as eating them? I can give up the 2nd ferment, or keep it to things like ginger, or some of the more savory flavors I enjoy.

    Thanks for the info!!!

  7. Hello, your article hit home. I have been homebrewing and drunking large amounts love the stuff. Unfortunately I have had asthma like never before. Been to hospital and steroids are not working. Only today did I question if it could be the kombucha :(.

  8. Great article. I think kombucha is low enough in carbs that is isn’t difficult to subtract carbs elsewhere in my keto diet. I started home brewing and plan to do a second ferment with pure cactus juice. Cactus juice is naturally low in sugar and adds a nice accent to taste.

  9. welp, thanks for slapping me in the face with the truth lol! I have been sabotaging my keto journey with one of my favorite things for quite some time. Thank you for the thorough explanation as well as pictures. I’ll be cutting back on the brand I purchase religiously!

  10. Thanks for the info. I just started a keto diet yesterday and was wondering about my kombucha teas. I’ve enjoyed them for several years. I sometimes double ferment with ginger, cayenne and turmeric root. Having read the article and comments I think I’ll start adding blueberry for a different taste.

  11. never use agave as it is fructose which is reported to promote obestity…
    fruit sugars go right to fat as not metabolized the same… so only use if your muscle glycogen is depleted after a long long workout with another one planned for later that day… be careful … go to Mark Sisson’s daily apple and learn more

  12. There are so many health benefits to it, and many of you love it so much, I really feel like it’s ridiculous to cut it out while making so many other wayyyyy more important dietary choices (like the foods you are eating) on your keto journey. Test your ketones and see if you want to be that strict, but Kombucha is likely not the source of any stalls or failures in keto.
    I know I may get lots of hate for this, but I just think fermented foods are important to a realistic, maintainable low carb diet for the long term.

  13. Thanks very much for you analysis, I thoroughly enjoyed your article. Unfortunately, your initial comparison of carb counts was not accurate because the “Trilogy” flavor is not “unflavored”. It in fact is second fermented with fruit juice. On the other hand, according to GTs current product labels, both the “Trilogy” and the “Original” (only first ferment with no fruit juice added) contain 6 carbs for 8 oz. Therefore, I am wondering if the second ferment truly adds carbs to the drink. The second ferment also “eats” the sugars that are added, only the sugars are from fruit instead of pure cane sugar. I suspect that if the second ferment versions are also fairly low carb so long as they are fermented long enough from the bacteria to consume the sugars.

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