Wow..I just ran thru a couple pages of this "New Products" forum and I am overwhelmed and concerned!!!
One opinion I garnered from Atkins, PP & Dr. Bernstein is that we all need to be "back to basics". I convinced myself that getting away from all the pre-packaged, chemicle-ridden, convenience foods was the only "right" thing to do. Ingredient lists that I couldn't even pronounce couldn't possibly be healthy for us!! Now it appears that every manufacturer has jumped on the LC Bandwagon and are marketing everything imaginable!! My guess, however, that the list of chemical ingredients is still largely the same....but without the sugar.
I thought we were supposed to be back in the kitchen....creating dishes that we KNOW what's in them.
Two years ago, when I did my first around of LCing....you cooked it yourself or it wasn't LC. Now everything from Doritos to brownies can be gotten LC. Are we loosing our focus....and what will the long term affect be?????????
It appears now that instead of changing our way of thinking about food....we're just grabbing a different package!!
Don't get me wrong....I'm OVERJOYED that there are more choices now than there was 2 yrs ago. Perhaps now those of us who have fallen off the wagon in the past will be able to maintin this WOL. But it appears to me that instead of "changing"...we are simply "substituting".

JMHO!!!!

Y'know, this has been nagging at my brain for a while now also....


I gained weight from bad eating habits. Popcorn or ice cream as a routine bedtime snack. A candy bar (or two) from the vending machines every day at work. Biiiiigggg bowls of pasta (I'm Italian). Cookies... well, you get the idea.

I remember from my childhood that those items would be treats from time to time. Not every day.

Dr. Atkins had the idea to get away from the bad eating habits we, as a nation, have developed, and relearn the healthy eating habits of our ancestors. Treats are for special occasions only, not as an everyday routine.

So what do you see in the LC section of stores???? JUNK FOOD. Low carb junk food, but junk food nonetheless.

So, instead of breaking our bad eating habits and learning the healthy way to eat, we continue with the eating habits that got us overweight in the first place.

That idea bothers me.

Other than the Advantage bars (the meal replacement ones, not the candy bars) I tend to stay away from all the low carb products. I'd rather make my own low carb alternates.

I envision folks who are maintaining their bad eating habits with low carb varieties will continue to have a difficult time with weight.

just my thoughts

Joan

I have no concern about using some prepackaged LC items now available. I'll still stay away from the candies as I'm inducting, but the muffin mixes with only 2 net carbs are great.

Thankfully most low-carb products are "self-regulating". I can sit down and eat a big honking family size chocolate bar with no problems, but if you try and eat more than a portion of low-carb chocolate... well, you all know what happens.

Same as with baked goods. I could eat 6 muffins normally (and is part of the reason I'm here, cuz I would ), but the fiber count in low-carb baked goods is usually high and again it can cause "issues." if you overindulge.

We've always had to watch our food intake, even before the LC products hit the mainstream. We made a choice to only eat 1 porkchop, and not two. As good as a greenbean dish is, I know I have to watch calories as well as carbs.

My only concern is that uninformed people will start using LC items like they do with low-fat items, and then knock the products and the diet when they don't lose weight.

i would say that i cook much more often than before. i prepare many more foods from scratch than ever before and i feel better for it. i use fresh veggies and berries as staples almost every day. but, if i am going to break down and have something sweet, i am glad that i have something low carb to eat! i realize that there can be an abuse of these products, but at the same time, i enjoy some low carb things. i might make a taco salad and have a small handful of low carb tortillas (maybe only 5 or 6) and i might have a low carb bagel with my tuna salad or i might even have a low carb peanut butter cup one day. i try to keep the use of these products to a minimum. i would still maintain that my diet is better and healthier for me than ever before--even if i do have a "frankenfood" once in a while!

I make soap and lotions and am required by the FDA to give the "chemical" names of components that go into my products. Many of these items are NATURAL and good for you but you wouldn't know it from reading the label.

CALCIUM CASEINATE (in food) is a component of cow milk - nothing to be afraid of.

I have researched low carb food ingredients extensively and feel much safer with this stuff than the regular prepared foods. Perhaps you think that isn't saying much but when you see, SOY ISOLATE PROTEIN, that is just soy flour and the word ISOLATE means they isolated the protein and fat and removed almost 100% of the carbs from them (if I remember correctly it is done by an electric current process - fascinating but not that high tech and I did not reckon it was a process that was bad for human health).

INULIN - a sugar alcohol, relatively new on the market and becoming popular because it doesn't give you the intestine disruption that some of the other sugar alcohols are known for.

HTH