Back in Januaray, I blogged about how the "bloom was off the low-carb rose", and how a bunch of food companies are getting on the low-carb bandwagon.
Okay, now we have our first "hey, maybe these things aren't as low-carb as we thought" from the nice people at KCBS. The one that struck me was the 55 g of carb bagels that had been advertised as 15 g. Ow! That group is claming "bad formulation in that batch". Geez guys, glad you aren't doing pharmaceuticals!
A couple of thoughts on this:
1. Some of the "low carb" stuff they talk about isn't what I would call that Atkins friendly, unless someone is on maintenance. Maybe this is the big carb splash for the day, or the hook to get the one low-carber in the crowd into the restaurant.
2. Related to #1--being on a low-carb diet doesn't mean you get to turn your brain off. If something looks/feels wrong with the food, or the description of the food, *pay attention*. And if you're going to do low carb, *learn* what's in food. And know how your body reacts to the food. Some people can handle the sugar-alcohols (sorbitol, maltitol, etc). Some can handle only some of the sugar-alcohols. Some can't handle any of them.
And learn what the manufacturer means by "net effective carbs". The same thing happened with the low-fat foods years ago, when manufacturers were putting all sorts of interesting goodies (remember MCT? yuck!) that weren't "fat" into foods. So, is "not really a carb" pure cellulose fibre (hey, remember when they were putting wood pulp into bread? That was an interesting discovery), or something like glucomannan? Do the calories add up? If not, why not?
It's too bad--it appears that low-carb is the way for a number of people to be able to take off the weight, and having some walk away from the diet when it's someone else sneaking in the carbs just stinks.
Posted by lsefton at February 8, 2004 10:04 AM