Be careful what you ask for
Take the carbs from our bread and pizza, please. But why are nutritional labels so confusing and when will the government weigh in?
By JANET K. KEELER, Times Staff Writer
Published April 21, 2004
Reduced-carbohydrate products are hitting the grocery store shelves at a dizzying rate. More than 1,000 in the past two years and up to 10 a week in 2004 are testing the market.
Walk down any aisle and you'll see the handiwork of the carb extractors.
Cheesecake, chips, ice cream, barbecue sauce, cookies, salad dressings, pasta, even bread and margarita mix, have been pushed and pulled by manufacturers so their nutritional content meets consumer demand. Down with carbs, we've said, but let us still eat cake.
"Americans, God love them, are doing what they always do: trying new things," Harry Balzer, vice president of NPD Group, a Port Washington, N.Y., consumer research firm.
Last week, the folks at Atkins Nutritionals, the food production arm of the Atkins diet empire, issued a warning about the flood of reduced-carb products.
"We think it's terrific that people have finally embraced controlled-carbohydrate nutrition," says Dr. Stuart Trager, medical director of Atkins Nutritionals Inc., in a company news release. "If you're just lowering your carbs with many of the new food products that are now hitting the market without correctly following a healthy low-carb lifestyle, you could easily get in trouble."
Atkins has introduced more than 100 products since 2000 and plans to continue that pace through this year.
Food manufacturers have responded more quickly to low-carb interests than to any other popular diet, most notably the low-fat fad of the 1990s. Balzer says they have been able to move fast because they are focusing on carbohydrates only.
"The low-fat craze (of the '90s) was in the middle of a good-for-you period," he says. "We were trying to reduce our fats, determine which ones were saturated, and reduce cholesterol and sodium."
Developing products that served various needs took longer, he says.
To cut carbohydrates in processed food, manufacturers substitute soy flour and cellulose for refined flour. Artificial sweeteners and sugar alcohols replace sugar and high fructose.
Sugar alcohols are carbohydrates that have limited effect on blood sugar and insulin production, according to the Food and Drug Administration. Maybe so, but they can have a big effect on the digestive system.
"Ex-Lax is made of sugar alcohols," says Laurie Kuntz, chief executive officer of the online industry magazine, LowCarbiz (
www.lowcarbiz.com) "People not used to sugar alcohols may have problems with them."
Kuntz suggested consumers take note of the serving size of products with sugar alcohols, which are listed in the ingredients as sorbitol, maltitol, mannitol, Xylitol or Lycasin.
"If you eat an entire candy bar that says it's four servings, you'll be in trouble," Kuntz says.
Regardless, the low-carb product field is booming. Besides new offerings, some products that never contained carbs are being relabeled. For instance, Hellman's mayonnaise now boasts that it has always been carb free.
"All manufacturers have found this to be a growth area," Balzer says.
Grocery stores also are reaping the benefits. Leslie Spencer, a spokeswoman for Publix, says there has been keen interest from shoppers and the store is responding by adding many new products and coming up with their own.
In the next few months, "low-carb lifestyle" bread in two varieties, multigrain and wheat, will join the regular lineup at the chain's in-store bakeries. Lower carbohydrate ice creams will be introduced this summer, followed by yogurt in the fall.
A walk down the aisles of Albertsons, Kash n' Karry and Publix stores in St. Petersburg finds reduced-carb products with names such as Carb Smart, Carb Countdown, Carb Well, Carb Control and Carb Counting. The labels promote them as fitting into a "low-carb lifestyle." None of them are touted as "low carb" because the FDA hasn't decided what constitutes a low-carb food. Is it 5 grams per serving, more or less? Manufacturers expected a ruling earlier this year, but now it appears there will be no guidelines issued until summer.
(Conversely, there are many more products labeled "low fat." According to the FDA, low-fat products must have 3 grams or less per serving.)
Another unsettled issue is the notion of net carbs, which is total carbohydrates minus fiber and sugar alcohols. The FDA allows this mathematical maneuvering but some researchers think sugar alcohols should not be subtracted because they do have some effect on blood sugar.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nutrition watchdog group, has asked the FDA to stop allowing net carbs to be listed on labels because consumers are unclear about what that means.
They all agree, though, that fiber can be subtracted from total carbohydrates to bring carbs down.
The science behind this involves the effect food has on blood sugar. Foods high in carbohydrates cause blood sugar to spike, which raises insulin output. The insulin breaks down the sugar and hunger follows. Proponents of carb-restricting diets think that eating foods high in protein and fiber, which release more slowly into the blood, will stave off hunger, and then the dieter can eat until contented and still lose weight.
But how many carbs a day? The Atkins diet allows very few in the induction phase. Kuntz says most low-carb regimens suggest 20 to 30 grams a day for weight loss. Maintenance would be about 50, far less than the 300 carbs a day recommended by the Food Pyramid, which is being overhauled. Nutrition experts expect that number to be around 150 on the new government-approved guidelines.
Phil Lempert, who analyzes food trends for ACNielsen, thinks the product saturation lulls people into thinking that anything is healthy as long as it has only a few grams of carbohydrates. He said a bunless double cheeseburger recently introduced by one restaurant chain is a good example.
"This product had over 1,200 calories, 110 grams of fat, 44 grams of saturated fat. Hello? Yeah, maybe there's only 5 net carbs, but you're eating enough calories for the day and twice as many grams of fat for the day," he said.
Though the labeling is confusing, it's clear to Balzer that we are starting down the same path we traveled when low-fat diets were popular: Overloading on "diet" food while paying little attention to calories. Ultimately, you have to cut calories to lose weight, he says.
"This (low-carb dieting) is not a weak fad, though it is a fad," he says. "It'll probably take two to three more years to get through it."
Then what?
"I'll bet someone is writing a book about a low-protein diet right now," he says. "Think about it. There are only three places to get calories: fat, carbs and protein. We've already done fat and carbs. What's left? Protein."
- Information from the New York Times and the Associated Press was used in this report. Janet K. Keeler can be reached at 727 893-8586 or krieta~sptimes.com
Be careful what you ask for
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