I am LIVID!!!
 

So, i thought that i was being sooooo smart buying the Carb Options brand peanut butter & steak sauce last week! Yesterday while i was enjoying my steak, i decided to check out the ingredients on the back. Sugar & cornsyrup were listed among splenda!! What bloody nerve! I then checked out the peanut butter, yeah it may be made with splenda....but has hydrogenated oils!! Oh boy, i'm telling you all please read the labels before buying......talk about discouraging! I threw both out. Thanks for reading my rant. :rolleyes:

I agree...they have hydrogenated oil in many of their products.....they need to read the book before putting products out there that go against what low-carbers are supposed to eat.

The same goes with the sugar and corn syrup.... I never bought the peanut butter, but I did buy the steak sauce weeks ago and didn't read the ingredients and it made me mad too.

I use very little 'low-carb' products...mostly just ketchup once in awhile and Kraft now has low-carb salad dressings and I buy them and the Carb Options ones... this is just because they are lower carb that the regular kinds and I like the convenience of using bottled salad dressings.

Isn't Carb Options from Unilever? The make SlimFast, which is sugar in a can. So, blame yourself for buying such products.

Yep, Unilever! But for someone who has NEVER tried Slimfast, i would not have known. Why should i blame myself?????? :rolleyes:

so basically youre saying that, because they make something with a lot of sugar, everything they make MUST have sugar????

You need to read the labels yourself and come to your own decisions. No one to do that for you.

Clearly, Unilever has zero interest in promoting the LC WOE; it is among the companies most hostile to the Atkins Nutritional approach. It suckered you in with the "Carb Options" name to make you think that it deserted its core business: selling sugar-in-a-can.

Actually Carb Options is made by different companies (Lawry, Lipton, etc) and placed in the Carb options line.

As stated in my initial message, i've tossed the Carb Options out(where they belong). Regardless, i'm on the right track and almost at goal.

Thank you for your OPINION.

Gotta say PacNW...people come here for support and to share info...now this is just my opinion...but making a comment that sounds a whole lot like "well...what did you expect idiot"...isnt very supportive. Just a little note. Phrasing can be hurtful....and people dont instantly "know" all the in's and out's and tricks of this WOE...it's a learning process....so sharing mistakes and info should be recognized with acknowledgement, support, and gratitude(if you learn something new). JMHO

That so sucks SFMOM. :( I know when I first started seeing things marked low carb or atkins I just assumed it was okay. It's a shame companies are allowed to be so misleading. As for the peanut butter I can say that the smuckers natural is wonderful! Even my kids love it. ;)

Jenn

In my experience, all peanut butters--low carb or not--that don't say "natural" or "containing only peanuts" on the label, have hydrogenated oils.


Let the buyer beware! :)

I've done so well low carbing (avoiding sugar and white flour etc) so VERY ocasionally now I will buy a LC product I know has corn syrup or something in it. But like I said I'm almost at goal and its an occasional thing. In my opinion its one of those things that makes my life easier at times, and also easier to stick to the WOE forever.

So you may not want to throw it away next time cause even if it does have a few bad ingrediants you may be able to tolerate it later in in the WOE in very small doses once you are closer to goal. (Well of course assuming it doesn't have a next week exp. date or anything)

Good luck
Jenny

Personally, I don't see the big deal and I can't believe you threw the stuff out.

I personally would not have pitched it. I don't eat enough of steak sauce or peanut butter in a setting for it to even affect me. Once it was gone, I would never buy it again. I would have also written the company with a respectful complaint. Companies get ideas for their products through the suggestions of thier customers. They appreciate the time that a customer takes regarding the quality of a product.There are even commercials that are no longer broadcast on TV because customers complained.

I have a huge axe to grind with these companies--and I'd like to grind it sharp. They slap a label onto a product and unfortunately all too many people are in a hurry shopping or whatever and just grab the product off the shelves without thinking to check labels. It happens to the best of us. ;)

Instead of throwing them away, though, you should have taken them back to the store and got a refund, explaining how these products aren't suited to an LC lifestyle and why. If people would return this stuff instead of tossing it, the manufacturers might start to get a clue.

As for peanut butter, stick with the all-natural stuff. One of our stores has a grind-your-own peanut butter in their bulk section, and all the major groceries in our area carry (and have as long as I can remember) Adams all-natural (peanuts and a little salt).

I personally don't think a tiny bit of corn syrup or sugar is going to hurt a person unless it starts serious cravings, and in most cases it won't. Unfortunately you'll never know until you try a product. Check the carb count and see how much of the carbs come from sugars.

There are salad dressings on the market that are a lot better option than the Carb Options dressings. If you have a WalMart, check out their store brand dressings (Great Value). Several of them have 0 carbs, and run around $1.17 per bottle. The problem in our family is with 4 low-carbers, we go through a lot of salad dressing and it would be pretty easy to spend $20 a month just on dressings. We buy some that are spendier, but when I can I also throw in some cheap stuff. ;)

Remember the "Report Post" function if a comment seems rude or out of line. :D

Personally, I feel like it was an overreation to get so upset. A LOT of products can have traces of sugar and still be low carb. Ranch dressing, some brands of mayo, packets of Splenda have maltodextrin... To each their own, but I wouldn't worry so much about a trace here and there.

Thank you for your comments and suggestions. I guess i should have really thought about it before tossing it out. I was just so ticked off! I was never a big fan of 'natural' peanut butter, but at this point i can't be picky. I'd rather ditch the hydrogenated oils.

Gee, i wonder if i can still take the junk from the garbage and mail it back to the company with a complaint? :D :D

Does the company make anything that you would eat? It wouldn't take much energy to write them a letter, explaining everything (and mentioning that you do like x product). They might send a sample or coupon!

I can't hack the natural peanut butter. I've tried three brands<bleh> I'll take a trace of hydrogenated oil for the texture, and since I've cut the vast majority of them from my diet, I figure I won't drop dead from occasional peanut butter. :D

I would have tossed it, but that's because I do my best to do Atkins by the book (one exception-- I didn't cut out caffeine completely). Some people can cut corners and still lose, but I can't.

Stick to natural peanut butter and you'll never need to worry about anyone adding sugar or trans-fats.

checking out my bottle of carb options steak sauce...sucrose...sucrose....sucrose...nope, don't see sucrose. i see SUCRALOSE. that's splenda.

don't see corn syrup either!

I think you're smart to do so, SFMOM. Studies have shown that as little as 1 gram of transfat per day can cause problems.
I don't think that a small amount of corn syrup would cause a huge problem but if you are sensitive to sugar in any form it's wise to avoid that as well.

there isnt any sugar in the peanut butter either

That is the reason why I do not buy nor eat any of that processed stuff.

Sure you can. They might get the hint if you mail it back to them but before you do decide to do that do you really want to incure the mailing costs for sending it back?

Of course you could always peel the labels of the jars, mail them those with a letter and the offending substances circled on the label and tell them what you did with the stuff in the jars and how ticked off you were.

I think the point here is that companies are slapping "LC" on their labels and assume that none of us give a hoot about anything but the carb count. Trusting consumers we are, we assume that they'd give us a quality product that aligns itself with the concepts behind LCing.

And talk about reinventing the wheel. I can understand making an alternative ketchup or steak sauce, which is usually sweet. But Carb Options (I think that's the brand) Alfredo sauce? That cracks me up. They want $5 a jar for it.

Moral of the story: regarding trace sugars and hydrogenated fats, decide for yourself what you are and aren't willing to eat, then read labels and see if a product fits into that. Trust the greedy processed food companies about as far as you'd throw them and don't let them dictate what's "okay".

</rant> :)

Perhaps the ingredients are different if manufactured in the US. My version was made in Canada. The ingredients were in the middle of the ingredient description....corn syrup, modified cornstarch, sugar...blah.blah..blah..

:p Anyhow, time to let this thread die i think! :D

Nope, you're not getting away that easy. :p

I would have returned it to the store if unopened. I would then mail or email a complaint to the company. We consumers should voice our opinions about products on the market, whether you're dissatisfied or not.