I'm new to all of this, but I have made the Atkins bars a major part of my low carb diet. It does seem to be working for me. Basically I'm having an Atkins breakfast bar for breakfast, one of the other Advantage bars for a lunch/snack mid-day, and then having a low carb dinner (usually a steak and veggies). I'm seen a significant improvement in my weight, and I'm dropping weight at a rate I wouldn't have previously thought possible.

I definitely don’t have the kind of experience with the details of these things that some of the people who responded do, but I believe some of their posts may be a bit misleading... They're making reference to sugar alcohols and artificial sweeteners as a reason to discourage someone from using the Atkins bars. Unless I'm wrong, these don’t have a lot to do with the issue.

Carbohydrates are anything aside from Fat and Protein that make up the actual weight of the food. A 60g Atkins bar has 19g of Protein and 12g of Fat. That leaves 29g of remaining content, which would usually be attributed to Carbohydrates. BUT... of these carbohydrates, all but 3.5g are Polydextrose and Glycerin... And 2g of the 3.5g are Dietary fiber. So you're actually left with 1.5g of carbohydrates that have an impact on your diet.

As best I can tell, glycerin isn't an artificial sweetener. (If you've tasted an Atkins bar you'd realize that, they definitely don't taste all that great.) It's a bulking agent... included to increase the size of the product without impacting the carbs we're concerned about. Glycerin is the stuff many soap products are made of (usually a vegetable product).

In the limited research I've done, it seems that Polydextrose is the equivalent of dietary fiber... also very much a bulking agent.

The Atkins bar package doesn't say what percent of the 29g of unaccounted for carbs are glycerin (which I definitely feel won't have any impact on your blood sugar) and what percent of it is Polydextrose (which I'm less sure about), but if my research is correct I doubt ingesting Polydextrose is anything to be concerned about... (Unless it turns out to be a carcinogen.)

Either way... I know it's working for me. I wouldn't say I'm necessarily following the Atkins diet per say, as my diet doesn't really follow all of the specific guidelines that Atkins puts forth. For example: I haven't cut out artificial sweeteners IN THE LEAST, or caffeine. I drink about 5 Diet Mountain Dews a day. That's a hell of a lot of artificial sweetener and caffeine. Also, I don't go out of my way to achieve a certain amount of caloric intake per day and I don’t try to drink tons of pure water… actually I usually don’t drink much if any. This may not be the best approach, but it seems to be getting the job done in a way that works for me.

--Victor