10+ Best MCT Oil Brands for Keto – including Brand Comparison Table!

Best MCT Oil Brands for Keto

What are MCTs?

Before we get into what are the best MCT oil brands for keto are, let’s answer what exactly MCTs are!

The main goal of the keto diet is for your body to enter a state known as ketosis.  In this state, your body breaks down fat (fatty acids) into ketones. You can then use these ketones for energy in your body and brain.

Humans actually do this naturally when we have low amounts of glucose/sugar in the blood, such as during fasting or long workouts.

MCTs (medium-chain triglycerides) are carriers of the aforementioned fatty acids. Due to their unique structure, the body can more easily break MCTs down and convert them to ketones. And having more ketones promotes that state of ketosis that we so dearly covet.

What is it about the structure of MCTs that helps keto?

Most dietary fat in the standard Western diet comes from LCTs (long-chain triglycerides). As the name implies, they have a longer structure, making them more difficult for your body to break down.

However, MCTs have a shorter, more saturated chain structure. This makes MCTs easier to break down, releasing fatty acids which turn into ketones. And yes, a saturated chain structure means MCTs are actually 100% saturated fat!

Wait, those saturated fats?

If you’re new to the concept of the ketogenic diet, you probably saw “saturated” and were ready to click away from the page. The war against saturated fats in the modern era has resulted in them being almost universally shunned. However, there is growing evidence that saturated fats are not bad but, in fact, beneficial.

That’s a huge debate all its own. We can go back and forth about bias in food studies until we’re blue in the face. However, what we can offer you is a little bit of our personal experience with keto.

Our Long-Term Keto Results

Modern society is anathema to saturated fats. Comparatively, both of us consume an egregious amount of saturated fat and dietary cholesterol.

But after over two years on a ketogenic diet, not only have we dramatically lowered our body fat percentages, our cholesterol levels have greatly improved.

Our LDL (bad) cholesterol levels have actually dropped, while our HDL (good) cholesterol levels have gone up!

Look around and the fat-averse Western world is suffering from an epidemic of metabolic diseases. Doing some digging, you will find the low-fat rage in the 80s and 90s was spurred by the sugar companies.

These companies used biased studies to skew public perception about sugar’s and carbohydrate’s contribution to obesity.

Further, many specialists in metabolic diseases like diabetes mellitus now treat it with ketogenic-focused dietary changes. And results have shown that most patients see lower blood glucose levels within weeks, all without medication.

If you’re interested about the research behind why ketogenic diets (high fat, low carb) are great for the body, check out a couple books by Gary Taubes: The Case Against Sugar and Why We Get Fat and What To Do About It. These two books sparked our keto and low carb journey and we can’t say enough good things about them!

Okay, let’s get back to MCT oil.

So, what can MCT oil do for me?

Make you a fat burning machine

Keto is a Low Carb, High Fat (LCHF) Diet. As we stated above, the more ketones you can generate, the more likely you will remain in ketosis and burn fat. MCTs are very effective ketone generators and MCT oil is concentrated MCT. This high MCT concentration makes your body more efficient at converting fat to ketones for energy.

Increase your carbohydrate tolerance

You have to eat a lot more fat than you’re probably used to in order to get to the point where you are a fat-burning, ketogenic machine. We’re talking about 4x as much fat than carbohydrates and protein combined. And that can be much harder than it would seem!

The huge benefit of MCTs is since they can help generate more ketones that normal fats. So, by supplementing with MCT oil and generating more free ketones in the body, you may be able to stay in ketosis even with increased carb and protein intake.

Just how much additional carbohydrate and protein you can consume is subjective and not an exact science. So we treat this as a bonus effect of MCT, rather than trying to ingest gobs more MCT just so we can eat a few more carbs/protein.

Fuel your Brain

Ketones are able to cross the blood-brain barrier and can therefore fuel your brain and increase mental clarity!

And when you generate a ton of ketones, your body actually flicks a switch to bring even more ketones into the brain. To take it further, add MCT oil to some coffee and you have a potent brain booster.

Is MCT oil the only thing that contains MCTs?

MCTs are naturally occurring in various foods such as butter, ghee, and coconut. However, the percentage of MCTs in these foods is relatively low.

Coconut oil is the exception since it is made up of more than half MCTs. However, there are several reasons why coconut oil is less desirable:

• Coconut oil’s natural MCTs consist of lauric acid, which does not metabolize like other MCTs.
• It has a relatively strong taste, especially when cooking with it.
• Additionally, coconut oil will solidify when added to colder beverages, while MCT oil does not.

We still love grass-fed butter, heavy cream, and the like, but this is where MCT oil shines. MCT oil is simply coconut or palm oil concentrated to be 100% MCT. So every bit of MCT oil you ingest is adding beneficial ketone generators to your diet.

How exactly do you consume the oil?

Luckily, MCT oil is flavorless and odorless. There are tons of potential uses for MCT oil:

• You can add some to your salad dressing
• Add it to your coffee. Check out these Butter Coffees we’ve reviewed that do just that.
• Easy to add to “keto shakes” and drinks
• While you can drink MCT oil as a supplement, this is the most likely method in which you will experience an upset stomach.
  • NOTE! Using too much MCT oil too quickly can lead to gastrointestinal distress. You’ll want to work your way up from about a half teaspoon daily to be safe. We generally can consume up to about 3 tablespoons daily without issue.

A quick word on the Sourcing and Processing of MCT Oil

Palm and coconut are the main sources of MCT oil. However, there is growing concern regarding the palm trade, specifically. The growth of palm plantations has contributed to increased deforestation and displacement of orangutans in Southeast Asia.

As such, coconut-based sources are more humane and environmentally-friendly. Many manufacturers are moving to coconut-only sources in light of these practices.

Alright. So, what are the best MCT oil brands for Keto?

We’ve tried several brands to the find the best MCT oil for us. The table below details what we feel is the best MCT oil for keto based on various criteria like sourcing, organic/GMO status, and most importantly MCT makeup.

MCT Makeup

The C8, C10, and C12 values in the table refer to the length of the MCT molecule’s carbon atom structure. Those with fewer carbons, like C8, are more easily metabolized into ketones. C12, the longest MCT molecule, is toughest for your body to metabolize. In fact, many argue that C12 does not react at all like its shorter-length counterparts. As such, C12 is the least desirable MCT.

Best MCT Oil Brands for Keto

A Final Word

We’ve tried most of the brands on our best MCT oil brands for keto list (the exception being a couple that are new to the market). There are simply too many variables to definitively say which brand works better than the others.

However, after going through multiple brands over the years, we’ve decided on Bulletproof Brain Octane Oil as our top MCT oil. We love the superior MCT content that gets you into ketosis faster and more efficiently. We consider it the best MCT oil for keto you can buy and use it exclusively on a daily basis.

Whatever option you choose, any MCT oil is going to be better than no MCT oil. Without MCT oil, you’re really missing out on a critically useful tool in your keto diet toolbox.