Is Dragon Fruit Keto Friendly? – Informative Charts

Since I am into growing Dragon Fruit and eat plenty of them when I have the opportunity, I wanted to know if they are Keto friendly. I must admit I had to do a bit of research to find the answer as there is not a lot of data regarding carbohydrates for the different varieties of Dragon Fruit. After a lot of researching here is what I found.

Dragon Fruit is Keto-friendly provided you know how many carbohydrates are in a serving and you stay within the 5% of overall daily carbohydrates you consume per day for the Standard ketogenic diet (SKD). According to USDA Food Data Central¹ 100 grams of Dragon Fruit, provides 12 grams of Carbohydrates, which if eaten in moderation, is Keto friendly, considering the abundant nutrition you get from a small amount.

If you research the subject you will find many conflicting answers, and this is largely due to the accurate measurements of carbohydrate value per 100 grams of the fruit. We stuck with the official USDA Food Data Central¹ values done through the fdc.nal.usda.gov website which values all of the reputable websites we researched were using.²

The data that is available to date is for the white flesh variety, however other varieties include red flesh, pink flesh and purple flesh, but we are assuming that all of the varieties have roughly the same carbohydrate values.

Colour pigments usually relate more to antioxidants, phytochemicals, vitamins & minerals rather than energy, however, some varieties are sweeter than other varieties which may affect overall calories but may not affect overall carbohydrates significantly. For an in-depth article on sweetness and taste of the various varieties of Dragon Fruit please take a look at our post: What Does Dragon Fruit Taste Like?

No research that we could find has been done on the carbohydrate content of each variety so we have to assume that all varieties provide roughly the same carbohydrate content per 100 grams.

Just in case you may be wondering what the Keto diet is, its actually a diet with very limited or restricted carbohydrates, around 5%, with most of the calories coming from fat, and then protein. There are actually a few different versions of the ketogenic diet.^{3 4}

1. Standard ketogenic diet: This diet tends to be is a very low-carbohydrate, with a moderate-protein and high-fat intake. Typically, this keto diet contains 75% fat, 20% protein and 5% carbohydrates
2. Cyclical ketogenic diet: This involves cycling periods of higher-carbohydrate days, such as 5 keto diet days followed by 2 high carbohydrate diet days.
3. Targeted ketogenic diet: This keto diet is more flexible by allowing you to add carbohydrates around your workouts. Generally better for bodybuilders.
4. High-protein ketogenic diet: This is pretty much the same as a standard keto diet, however it includes more protein. The ratio changes but is often around 60% fat, 35% protein with only 5% coming from carbohydrates.

So, if we use the Standard ketogenic Diet and we normally consume 2,000 calories a day, we would be allowed 100 calories per day for carbohydrates. Of course, you would adjust this value up or down depending on your total consumed calories per day and the type of Ketogenic diet ratios you are using.

Now 100 grams of Dragon Fruit typically has 60 calories and 12.94 grams of carbohydrates and 100 calories would give us 24grams of carbohydrates.

If your keto diet allows for more carbohydrates such as 50grams per day you could safely eat 200 grams of dragon fruit. But I am supposing that you wouldn’t want to be getting all of your daily carbohydrates allowance from Dragon Fruit, so adjust quantities per your personal situation.

Check out our table below of a few different Dragon Fruit Varieties and their average weight and carbohydrate content. Then you can adjust your quantity you might consume in a day to enjoy the health benefits of this exotic fruit.

Table of Dragon Fruit Varieties with Average Weight per Fruit and Total Carbohydrates and Calories

Is Yellow Dragon Fruit Keto Friendly?

This question is answered by looking at the table above. Yellow skinned dragon fruit tends to be sweeter than the red-skinned variety, however, the flesh of the yellow-skinned tends to be white. According to the Journal of Pharmacognosy and Phytochemistry 2018⁵, a study of the Dragon Fruit in India, the white flesh variety has the following nutritional values.

Proximate nutraceutical values in grams of the edible portion of white-flesh dragon fruit are as follows: protein (1.1), fat (0.57), energy (Kcal) (67.7), carbohydrates (11.2), sorbitol (0.33); vitamin C (3.0), vitamin A (0.01), niacin (2.8), Ca (10.2), Fe (3.37), Mg (38.9), P (27.75), K (272.0), Na (8.9) and Zn (0.35)

Yellow Dragon fruit is Keto Friendly, but you would have to consume at most 1 whole fruit or less per day based on 100grams supplying 67.7 calories and 11.2 grams of carbohydrates. However, its tremendous nutritive property makes it a very beneficial source of carbohydrates when on a Keto diet.

Is Dragon Fruit Good For Keto Diet?

So, in conclusion, after researching and finding out as much valid and trustworthy data regarding the Dragon fruit we can now answer the question: Is Dragon Fruit Good For Keto Diet?

Dragon Fruit is good for the Keto diet, but you can only consume a small amount of the fruit per day to stay within your carbohydrate restrictions. We would suggest no more than half a piece of dragon fruit per day or less. This amount would also supply many nutritional benefits to your daily diet and overall well-being.

In further articles we will discuss more fully the nutritional benefits of Dragon Fruit.