UPDATE 5/28/20: Halo Top has released a new line of ice cream that is intended to be keto and advertises net carbs rather than calories per pint! If you can’t find the keto flavors in your local grocery store, the post below will still be helpful for choosing the lowest carb regular flavors. However, the keto line allows you to indulge without worrying about macros!
Halo Top Ice Cream is advertised as a low-sugar, low-carb, and low-fat ice cream with flavors that range from 240 to 360 calories per entire pint. Of course, if you follow the ketogenic lifestyle, what you really care about is just how low carb this ice cream is. When I searched for the lowest carb Halo Top flavor, I didn’t find an immediate answer, so I looked at every single nutrition label of the dairy flavors. My hope with this post is to make information about the carb content in Halo Top easily accessible. Keep reading to find out how safe it is to eat Halo Top on keto and which flavor has the lowest total carbs and net carbs!
Is Halo Top Ice Cream Keto?
The short answer is yes. You can make room for Halo Top in a ketogenic/LCHF diet, so it’s safe to call Halo Top a keto ice cream. However, while the premise of Halo Top is that you can eat the whole pint (four servings) without guilt, that’s not generally the case if you’re keto. Sticking to one or two servings is ideal. That said, it’s not impossible to eat the whole pint and stay in ketosis, but you may have to eat close to zero carbs for the rest of the day because an entire pint of dairy Halo To, which contains four servings, has between 24g and 40g net carbs. Flavors range from between 6g and 10g net carbs per 1/2 cup serving.
How Much Halo Top Kicks You Out of Ketosis?
Everyone is different, so the only way to figure out how much Halo Top kicks you out of ketosis is to test your ketone levels after eating it. There are a few methods for checking whether you’re in ketosis including using ketone testing strips or a blood ketone meter. Blood ketone meters like the KETO-MOJO are more accurate than ketone test strips, but the strips are less expensive and great as a starting point. You can read my post How to Tell When You’re in Ketosis for more information about ketosis testing.
If you’re scared by the carb content of Halo Top, Wink Frozen Desserts an alternative that is lower in net carbs although it tastes less like traditional ice cream. See my review of Wink Frozen Desserts keto ice cream to learn more. Another low carb dessert that may interest you is ENLIGHTENED Ice Cream, which has a Chocolate Peanut Butter flavor that is only 3g of net carbs per serving, lower than any Halo Top flavor. See ENLIGHTENED vs. Halo Top to learn more.
Granted, the best way to enjoy sweets while keeping net carbs low while getting adequate fat and protein is to make your own keto desserts because you can control exactly goes into them. Second to that, there are better keto dessert options such as KNOW Better Cookies, Fat Snax Cookies, and Nui cookies, which have more fat and fewer net carbs per serving than any flavor of Halo Top because they are formulated for keto. Wondering how to fit Halo Top and other keto desserts into your diet? Check out this keto macro calculator to figure out your daily fat, protein, and carbohydrate goals in minutes.
What’s the Lowest Carb Halo Top Flavor?
Chocolate is technically the lowest carb dairy Halo Top flavor with 13g total carbs and 6g net carbs per 1/2 cup serving. While ranking all the dairy Halo Top flavors by net carbs, I discovered that twelve of the flavors (including chocolate) have 6g net carbs, so technically it’s tied 12 ways. However, the other eleven flavors with 6g net carbs per serving have 14g total carbs per serving while chocolate only has 13g. If you’re counting net carbs like most people on a keto diet (rather than total carbs), the difference between chocolate and the other flavors isn’t meaningful.
While a true keto ice cream would ideally have a higher fat content, all Halo Top flavors are very low in fat with between 2g and 3.5g per serving. Peanut Butter Cup has both the highest fat content (3.5g per serving) and lowest net carbs (6g) of any Halo Top flavor. Chocolate Almond Crunch and Mint Chip are also higher in fat (3g per serving) than the other flavors with 6g of net carbs per serving.
Halo Top Dairy Flavors Ranked by Net Carbs
Just in case you aren’t familiar with net carbs, they are calculated by subtracting carbs from fiber and sugar alcohol from the total carbs. Many people who follow a ketogenic diet do not count carbs from fiber and sugar alcohol toward their daily carb intake because these carbs do not cause blood sugar levels to rise the same way as “regular” carbs do. Anyway, onto the flavor rankings! I based my list on the net carbs per 1/2 cup serving, so if you’re wondering what the net carbs are for an entire pint of a flavor, just multiply the number by four.
The Lowest Carb Halo Top Flavors – 6g Net Carbs Per Serving
- Chocolate
- Vanilla Bean
- Lemon Cake
- Strawberry
- Mint Chip
- Rainbow Swirl
- Birthday Cake
- Peanut Butter Cup
- Oatmeal Cookie
- Pistachio
- Chocolate Almond Crunch
- Black Cherry
Halo Top Flavors With 7g Net Carbs Per Serving
- Chocolate Covered Banana
- Chocolate Mocha Chip
- Caramel Macchiato
Halo Top Flavors With 8g Net Carbs Per Serving
- Cookies & Cream
- Sea Salt Caramel
- S’mores
- Red Velvet
- Pancakes & Waffles
- Candy Bar
Halo Top Flavors With 9g Net Carbs Per Serving
- Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
- Mochi Green Tea
- Blueberry Crumble
The Highest Carb Halo Top Flavor – 10g Net Carbs Per Serving
The Halo Top flavor with the highest amount of net carbs is Cinnamon Roll, with 18g total carbs and 10g net carbs.
There you have it! If you’re following a vegan keto diet and are interested in a similar post that ranks the dairy-free Halo Top flavors by carb content, let me know. Also let me know if I made any mistakes in this post so I can fix them. I got all my information from viewing the nutrition labels on Halo Top’s website.
Where to Buy Halo Top Low Carb Ice Cream
Halo Top is a fairly popular product that is available in most grocery stores and even convenience stores (at least where I live in South Jersey). If you can’t find Halo Top near you or just don’t feel like leaving your house, you can order Halo Top on Amazon.
Personally, my favorite flavor of Halo Top is Red Velvet (though I haven’t tried them all yet), which unfortunately isn’t especially low carb. I usually stick to Chocolate because it’s the lowest carb Halo Top flavor. I’d love to hear your favorite flavor! Are you able to resist the urge to eat a whole pint on the keto diet, or do you save up all your daily carbs so you can? Let me know in the comments!
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I’ve only tried one flavor so far and I was good, I ate 3 1/2 cup servings and have one left I’m saving for a special occasion.
I tend to eat 3/4 of the pint as well, haha. That’s definitely how I always ate them before I was keto. But unless I really save up my carbs, I try to stick to one or two servings. Which flavor did you try? I’ve tried a lot of them, but not all.
Make your own keto desserts:
https://kimmy1563.com/2018/04/23/why-i-dont-bake-much-yet-still-have-yummy-desserts/
I’m diabetic and losing weight by staying KETO.
THANK YOU for this ranking. I’ve tried some Atkins frozen treat recipes, but I don’t often have time to prepare and freeze them.
I’m glad to hear that keto is working out for you and also that my post was helpful. Keto has transformed my life as well!
Peanut butter cup is amazing but I only eat half and you got to wait for it to thaw out a little bit so it turns creamy on you that’s the desired effect
Thanks so much! The list is a huge help so that I am not having to look at every label at the store 🙂 I can pick one and go right to it.
Thank you so much for this article! You saved me so much work!
You are wrong in your carb counts. Total carbs is for per serving. So if the vanilla bean has 13 total carbs. And 3 fiber..that puts it at 10. 4 servings (whole thing) it’s at 40 carbs.
Hi Byron,
While my counts are accurate, I updated the post a bit to make the language clearer.
Per serving, the vanilla bean has 14g total carbs, 3g of which are from fiber and 5g of which are from sugar alcohol. This means 6g net carbs per serving (subtracting 8g from the 14g total) and 24g net carbs per pint.