http://www.dietlowcarb.com/newslett...ver/oct0902.htm

As a low carb dieter for almost 4 years now, I must say that the landscape of eating choices has increased dramatically over that period. Over the years, many new low carb products have shown up on the market place and the variety was just what I needed to breathe new life into a rather dull low carb routine of meat, eggs, green veggies, cheese, and sugar-free Jell-O. Who could have imagined eating cakes, cookies, chocolates, breads, and pastas on a low carb diet?

Many of these new products soon began boasting of zero to few carbs and, wow, were they delicious. I was in seventh heaven with these new goodies. It was so nice to be able to have a side of pasta with dinner, or to have a piece of cake for dessert. I didn't go crazy - I sprinkled in a little variety to my daily routines. One day I might have a chocolate bar, the next I may have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, … All the time I counted my carbs and stayed within my limits of 30 to 35 carbs per day.

All was going great on my new rejuvenated diet until I noticed that my clothes were getting tighter again. I stepped on the dreaded scale and my worst fears were confirmed I did in fact put back on 10 pounds. So what happened? I wasn't eating more carbs - I was staying within my limits - or was I? As a veteran to the low carb diet I knew something was amiss and I immediately retreated to the basics of my original low carb routine - and wouldn't you know it the weight began melting away again.

So what was up with all these low carb products? I know my daily carb limits and how to add carbs into my routine. After all I've been doing low carb for years with great success. It was time for me to do a little research on these new low carb products, and it didn't take me a long to stumble on several current articles dealing with an FDA crack down on the low carb product claims. The timing was perfect for the new product disclosures were just hitting the market. Manufacturers now had to disclose all those carbs that were previously claimed to "not have a significant impact on blood sugar levels" and guess what there were many carbs in these products. Once they disclosed the "real" carb counts I had my answer - and Polyols or sugar alcohols are why my weight loss was derailed. Turns out the manufacturers were dismissing the carbs in the sugar alcohols, e.g., Malitol, Sorbitol, Mannitol, Lactitol, Xylitol in their low carb claims.

On a side note - I figured out the source of my gastric distress, i.e., I experienced a few of those "laxative effect" episodes at the hands of those sugar alcohols.

Now with the new carb disclosures I could figure out what went wrong earlier. Let me illustrate with an example:

I examined one of those popular chocolate bars, where they boast in big graphics on the front 0 Carbs. Although that's what my eye first caught until I looked more closely at the graphics to see that it said 0 sugar carbs - but wait - the back of the label displays a total of 27 carbs under the nutrition facts section. A chart, which is not required by the FDA, is also conveniently provided to chip away at those 27 carbs, concluding with a claim of 1 net effective carb (so what happened to the 0 on the front label?). With the new FDA rules, the manufacturer now discloses and then dismisses the 24 grams of sugar alcohols from Malitol in their net effective carb count. Ironically almost half the chocolate bar, 48%, is Malitol by weight, i.e., of the 50gram bar 24grams are Malitol.

I don't know about you, but when I eat 24 grams of any sugar, whether or not they claim it has no net effect on blood sugar, it does for me. Since Malitol is a sugar alcohol and not a direct glucose sugar, there are plenty of theories out there that claim a sugar alcohol will have less effect on your system than a "regular" sugar. So I asked myself, what would be a fair effective carb count? Based on what I've read out there, I don't think the answer is really known yet, but I'm pretty sure it does have some measurable effect. All I can go by is how my system reacts when I add in the sugar alcohols. So how should I count the sugar alcohols? If I give credence to the claim that a sugar alcohol has less effect on blood sugar levels, than several theories suggest that you should discount the sugar alcohol count to 1/3.

Based on the "1/3-rule", in the case of our chocolate bar, I would need to increase that effective carb count by 8 grams (1/3 of 24 grams) to account for the dismissed sugar alcohols. That will leave me with a total effective carb of 9 grams, hum, not even close to zero. Based on my experiences I am finding this to be a more accurate picture of the carb count in that product. So instead of eating the whole bar in one sitting, I'm limiting myself to half or less so that my chocolate snack will count for 4 or 5 grams in my daily total. Given this new knowledge I have now been able to maintain my low carb program - so you can have your cake and eat it too on the low carb diet.

So now I ask myself have these companies really seen the light and are they fully disclosing the carbs? Are they just navigating around some new FDA guidelines? I'm afraid it's looking to me like the later. I'm the first to say that the low carb specialty items are great for spicing up the diet, although I'm a little disappointed in some of the manufacturers for misleading me and derailing my diet. My purpose for writing this is not to bash good tasting products but to draw attention to the fact that the buyer should be aware of all the hidden carbs in these products. Given this new found knowledge I am now able to decide what my portion sizes should be to keep me in my daily carb range, and so now you can too.

this was exactly what i found to. i used to eat a protein bar which stated 3 c-grams and my bgs shot up and stayed up for 4 hours.after checking the small print (with glasses)i found there was 33 c-grams per bar and suppositly 3 effective grams.the difference was sugar alcohols.this doesn,t work for me.my body reacts to all the carb grams.i still eat some of these products but only in very small amounts.i have to take into account all the c-grams and use portion control.

Brokbabe...... in his book, Dr. Atkins does say that it is okay to subtract the total amount of sugar alcohols from the amount of carbs listed.

It sounds like you must disagree with that line of thinking.

By no means am I an expert on the subject, but from what I have read, sugar alcohols ARE carbs which are digested into the bloodstream so slowly, that the effect is basically nil.

Of course, if you overdo it, it could cause you to go on overload. I also wonder if it makes a difference if you have these things on an empty or full stomach.

TC

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