More LC bread in supermarkets

[tamarian]

I'm detecting a new pattern here. LC breads are showing up in your average supermarket. I just posted about Holsum showing up in Ontario supermarkets, and now I find this link for another brand of LC bread showing up in the U.S.

http://www.healthylifebread.com/index.html

What both brands have in common is they both advertise Fat-free, cholestrol-free and low-calorie! This one however adds "Carb-restricted". I guess they want to please everyone?

Wa'il

[tamarian]

Just got a reply from them: :)


Our Healthy Life Bread has been sold for years as a low calorie, low fat bread and had many fans. It also, due in part to the high fiber, was low carb. However, years ago people were counting calories and fat grams, not carbs. When the low carb diets became more well-known, our bread was "discovered" by the carb-counters. To date we've had no complaints from our customers about the level of fat in the bread, nor about the taste. I don't believe we've lost any of the customers who bought it for the low calories/fat and we've gained many customers who buy it for the carb count.

-----Original Message-----
Hello,

Cobgrats on your new site/business. Whay do you make low-carb bread with no fat? You cannot please both audience, low-fat and low-carb at the same time, and you might lose both. There are plenty of low-fat, low-calorie breads in the market, and it would be quite original to make truley low-carb bread, not low-fat!

Wa'il

[doreen T]

Nutrient data - per slice

calories 35
fat 0
total carbohydrate 8g
fiber 3g
sugar 1g
protein 1g

calorie breakdown -
fat = 0
protein = 1 x 4 = 4

so, 35 - 4 = 31 calories remaining that must come from carbs. Well 8 x 4 = 32. Seems their figure for TOTAL carbs is in fact total DIGESTIBLE carbs .... the fiber has already been subtracted.

This is very misleading, because many people think they should subtract fiber from the total carb count, to get the ECC. WRONG. I've noticed more and more products are doing this, so you really have to read those labels and do the math.

8 carbs for one slice of bread is a lot, since most folks want 2 slices to make a sandwich.

On the subject of fat .... the LaTortilla Factory tortillas are both lowfat and lowcarb too .. ;) .. It's just coincidence I guess. Only thing from my higher carb bread-baking and eating past ... the less fat in the bread, the faster it goes stale. Think of French bread. Stale in a single day!!

Doreen

[tamarian]

Definitly misleading!

When will there ever be a clear standard!!

Wa'il

[r.mines]

I've done the math, and the LaTortilla tortillas are actually 5.5 carbs each (the small ones), NOT 3, as they advertise.

Calories 60
Fat 2 gms (x9 = 18)
Protein 5 gms (x4 = 20)

60-38 = 22; 22 divided by 4 = 5.5

I still use them, but I usually eat 1/2 of one instead of a whole one now.

Beware the hidden carbs!

By the way, there's a handy-dandy hidden carb calculator at Mary Sweathe's site:

http://www.geocities.com/msweathe/fiber-calc.html

Just punch in the numbers and it does the math for you.

Rachel



Originally posted by doreen T

On the subject of fat .... the LaTortilla Factory tortillas are both lowfat and lowcarb too .. ;)

Doreen

[IslandGirl]

Sadly, it's been my experience in 3 years of LCing that labels are a 80-90% proposition at best.

One of my few comforts is the actual lab-testing (burn! burn! LOL!) that went on a year or 2 back, through the good offices of the venerable LowCarb Retreat (Lee Rodgers' site, he's pretty well one of the 'grand old men' of LC). See: http://www.lowcarb.org/tortillas.html

The first lab test (WASAs, LaTortilla(s) and BranACrisp) came up with somewhat disappointing but unsurprising label inaccuracies and the label always erred on the side of high carbs. Of course labelling law in the States, the biggest market, had been focussed on accurate fat and protein counts; there the FDA would land like a ton o' bricks if there was complaint. Anyway, to make a long story shorter, the 2nd test round declared the 3g effective carb count to be accurate (there were finally complaints and they changed the formulation by adding roasted soy flour and fixing the label).

Of note, there are a number of foods manufacturers that calculate fiber as calories, especially soluble fiber, because of that orientation of the FDA-controlled labelling laws. See the Expert Foods labels, for example. Those products are essentially all soluble fiber carbs (vegetable gums)... there's also a very well articulated and researched discussion of US labelling laws and why things are as they are, which is of course SKEWED from a LowCarber's point of view. See http://www.ExpertFoods.com if only for the info on labelling, it's amazing.

All else notwithstanding though, many have a sensitivity to grains or soy or what have you, so YMMV [ Your Measurements May Vary ] and it's probably best to take a cautious approach and watch one's reactions, as Rachel does. It's responsible and practical! It's safest to Do The Match and to have fewer carbs than more. They can be sneaky as we all know!

Well, I'll get off my soapbox now [ grin! ]

[Mae West]

Hmmm... I really don't trust any of these "we make low-carb stuff" guys-- not one of them. Not since the LaTortilla incident (I was new to low-carbing and reading asdlc when that information came to light a couple years ago.) All those people had been trusting and eating LaTortillas for all those months, and couldn't figure out why they had stalled for so long...

I don't even trust the sainted Dr. Atkins when he says his products are low carb... When I heard him say that his Atkins Bars really shouldn't be consumed too much until a person is on maintenance because they could cause a stall... Hmmmm...

I don't really trust anything that says "low-carb" unless it's on a package in the meat display case.

Well, OK, if the package says the product contains soy, I might take a look at it... but my experience with soy is that it makes the product taste Naasssssssty! Have they improved the taste of soy based products in the past year?

Mae West
218/213.75/130 Atkins since 6/3/01
"He's so crooked you'd have to measure him with a corkscrew." The Other Mae West

[debi56]

can someone tell me what is the carb formula for figuring out just how many carbs are in something?
thanks

[IslandGirl]

can someone tell me what is the carb formula for figuring out just how many carbs are in something?
thanks

Roughly, it's:

Subtract (fat grams * 9) from Total Calories
then
Subtract (protein grams * 4) from the number you get above
then
Divide the number you get out of that by 4 and that should approximately equal total effective carb count...

That's how the carb calculator link mentioned earlier in this thread and the even better one right here on this site (see over to your right, a quick link named Carbohydrate Counter?) work. This website's Carbohydrate Counter uses much more exact numbers (or factors) than 9/4/4 ...

[debi56]

:dazzle: Thanks for the help. :roll: