I just noticed that a one ounce square of Baker's Semi-Sweet baking chocolate has only 7 net carbs..... and it tastes great too!

Don't deprive yourself..."Carb Solutions" has chocolate bars with 0 net carbs. Give yourself a treat rather then a tease. You can find these at Walmart.

Walgreens also has a bar called Pure De-lite. The dark chocolate is awesome. Total Carbs. 1.1gram, 0 sugar.

Give em a try.

Do those low carb bars have the sugar alcohols and other stuff that some people have found create stalls and cravings? (I'd love to find out that they don't)

I find it appealing that the baker's chocolate is made of simple ingredients... and it doesn't make me feel deprived. It makes me feel happy!

Yes, those bars and candies that say 0 or very low carbs usually have sugar alcohols, which cause an entirely new set of problems for many people. They don't agree with my digestive system at all!

I've heard some people do have issues with them - however; not me.

Wouldn't the "simple" ingredients in semi-sweet baking chocolate include sugar? Unsweetened baking chocolate contains no sweeteners at all, and is thus acceptable for use in low-carb dessert recipes, but I'm almost positive that all of the sweetened versions use plain old sugar. Artificial sweeteners don't always bake well, so I'd be surprised if they were sweetening the chocolate with anything else.

Unsweetened chocolate is a little less than 4g per 1oz square, so it sounds like there's almost a teaspoonful of pure sugar in your chocolate providing those extra carbs. Sugar alcohol may create stalls and cravings, but it's got nothing on sugar in that department. You'd do much better to eat a low-carb bar than something containing that much sucrose, which will have much greater effects on your insulin.

I don't mean to be harsh, vickiel, but semi-sweet baking chocolate IS NOT A LEGAL FOOD for a low-carb diet. It's no different than eating a small chunk of a Hershey bar -- it is a cheat, and should be avoided. True, the net carbs aren't that high, but you may want to see what Dr. Atkins has to say about why even smaller doses of refined carbs should be avoided.

Thanks for the link to the FAQ. It was really good to get a refresher after 4 1/2 months.
But I'm curious whether there is room on this diet for individuation of the rules. For example, the sugar alcohols throw some people off, and not others. The baker's chocolate with real sugar in it, does not seem to create cravings or problems for me. If that is the case for me, is there anything wrong with incorporating it into my WOE as I search for a permanent way of low carbing for life?

If it works for you, you can eat just one square(my problem) and it not cause you problems. Shouldn't be too much of a problem, just remember that it might kick you out of ketosis for a bit and make sure to keep track of the carb count.

If this is the thing that will let you stay eating this way, and cause no ill effects. I'd say, go for it. Just don't make it an everyday occurance.

Everyone is different though, and I couldn't do it!

Vickie, everyone's perspective about cheating is different, and that's something you have to decide for yourself. My primary concern in my previous post was to make sure that no newbies on Induction get the idea that sweetened chocolate is OK or could be eaten regularly!

That said, yes, I think the rules are more flexible as one moves toward maintenance, or depending on one's own body; some people can tolerate more fruit or dairy than others, and as you note, the sugar alcohol reactions are quite varied. BUT... I don't think that refined, high-GI carbs such as sugar should form a regular part of any LC eating plan, period. It's cheating, and I personally don't think cheating on a regular basis -- say, once or twice a week -- is a good idea. There are much less damaging and equally tasty substitutes available in the form of low-carb chocolate, so I don't get why regular doses of real sugar should be necessary to help you make this a permanent WOE. If you have to have something sweet, try a Pure Delite bar, or some of the new SF Reese's or Hershey's instead -- all of those are indistinguishable taste-wise from the real McCoy.

Mind you, that's my opinion, not holy writ. I just think refined carbs are bad for you and should be strenuously avoided except in small doses on rare occasions (e.g. every two or three months, not every week or two). To me, routine consumption of pure sugar, even in smaller doses, isn't what a permanent LC WOE is about. I think it's a slippery-slope thing, and it's very easy to get a lot farther down the slope than you realize at the time. So for me, sugar/flour are "bad" foods, and I am being bad when I eat them, and I will look bad if I am bad all the time. Yes, it's simplistic, but sometimes that's more effective than nuance.

Excellent food for thought, Atlee. Thank you!

Now... what are those SF candy bars??? I missed hearing about them.

My 2 cents (I'm never short on cents!) is this: We live in the real world. In the real world there is chocolate. Do you honestly think you'll NEVER eat chocolate again? If so, ignore the rest of my post. If you think you'll continue this diet, but down the road start adapting it for a life in the real world (and adapting it to a plan that works for YOU), then I see nothing wrong with the occasional 7 carb chocolate (no matter what it's made of). I spent 10 years dieting on the "I have to be PERFECT, live this diet absolutely letter of the law" type diet.......where did it get me? It only reinforced that old idea of if you slip, you might as well give it all up.......eat the whole chocolate bar, and then some! Better to learn how to incorporate the things you will be eating when maintaining your weight for life, than to be so stringent that when you DO eat that peice of chocolate, you fall apart and don't know how to handle it. This is MY experience, and I'm not saying it is applicable to anyone else. It's just a pet peave of mine, because I have seen the destruction of this mindset not just in the issue of food, but all aspects of our lives.

Louisa, I certainly wasn't saying that I never cheat. It's just not something that I do on any kind of regular basis, is all; my whole point is that it's out of the norm for me, not something I do often. I think it's too easy for a routine cheat, even a smaller one, to become the norm; at least, that's how eating real chocolate on, say, a weekly basis seems to me. I've seen a lot of threads about cheating around here lately -- it's the meme of the moment -- and there are an awful lot of people who use every piddling little holiday as an excuse for a mega-binge, or who jump off-plan once a week and wonder why they aren't losing. I'm not the only one who finds it frustrating, so forgive me if I've been ranting.

Vickie, try Wal-mart or Walgreen's for SF chocolate. Russell Stover makes a large line of SF candies, and Hershey's just came out with SF versions of their chocolate miniatures and Reese's PB cups. I have seen large displays of the Hershey's and the Russell Stovers at my local grocery stores and Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart and Walgreen's both carry the Pure Delite chocolate bars, which I think are the best of the SF chocolates. Atkins Endulge brand PB cups are good too, but I'm not a big fan of the Carbolite stuff. Your local health food store may also carry some of the more "gourmet" brands like Asher's and Ross. Just to be clear, I'm talking about the chocolate candy-type bars, as distinct from the Atkins Advantage meal-replacement bars!

If you're interested, I have a delicious recipe for "oeufs aux deux chocolats" (basically, chocolate egg creams) using Pure Delite bars on page 3 of my journal. I have also used the SF chocolate for dipping strawberries and accenting Splenda-sweetened meringue cookies as well, which makes a little go a long way!

I certainly never understood the idea of scheduled cheating. I was talking with a co-worker yesterday and we were comparing his BFL with Atkins. He indicated he had a "cheat day".

What got me was I know I would simply be skirting every other day to get to that cheat day. I know what got me where I cam today and believe me, I dearly love my junk food. But I also know that I have to drastically change the way I look at food or I'm sunk.

Of course, YMMV...

You're right, we live in the real world, but I'm sure you've noticed that the real world is full of fat, unhappy people. Take if from someone who went from 325 to 198 (I'm a big, tall guy, so that was ideal for me) and then back up to 243 again. If you start eating little bits of chocolate here and there, you don't lose weight. Worse, you gain weight and destroy all your progress.

I'm like an alchoholic. I can't have just one bite of chocolate - better to just eliminate chocolate entirely. Even low-carb chocolate bars are kind of dangerous for me. Part of this program is breaking these physical and PSYCHOLOGICAL addictions. It's healthier if we learn to just live without them.

Eating unsweetened chocolate, or low-carb chocolate for that matter is kind of like being a vegetarian who eats veggie-burgers. We're not real LC'ers, we're Crypto-Carbers!

That said, I still agreed with your comments Atlee. Better LC chocolate than trying to slip the real stuff in there under the radar. The lesser of 2 evils.