has anyone tried walden farms calorie-free dips and dressings? they claim to be calorie free and carb free but i don't see how that's possible. they even have a chocolate sauce available. i've tried their ranch and blue cheese dressings and they're so good that i'm scared to try them again (you know the old saying...too good to be true). lol
anyway, i just wanted everyone's opinion. they have a website at www.waldenfarms.com. if you wanna check them out for yourselves. thanks all

I don't believe it either, JustAGirl...

I went to the webpage and couldn't find the actual Ingredients List anywhere (which is ALWAYS a good thing to check in the face of such Calorie-Free claims).

Technicalities in Nutritional Labelling allows sleight-of-hand and smoke-and-mirrors with the Nutrition Label (together with teeny serving sizes) but not with an honest Ingredients List.

If anyone has one of these "Calorie Free" products, or has communicated with Walden Farms and got a detailed answer on the contents of these products, any of them, please DO share it here so we can have a good look at it?

Judi,
i thought the same thing. in fact, i've emailed them twice asking for their ingredients lists (i didn't save my former bottles) and received no reply either time. busy or evading?
when i bought the dressings i checked the ingredients and remember questioning a couple of the ingredients (primarily "buttermilk powder"), but the thought (or illusion) of calorie free temporarily outweighed the questioning. lol.
oh well, darn.

I haven't seen, read about, or tried these, but I used to order from Walden Farms during my vegetarian days and I loved them. They may have been taken over by a large, mean and shifty conglomerate, but ten years ago they did backflips to serve customers and were always highly recommended (by real people as well as writers) in the vegetarian magazines. Fingers crossed that they haven't changed.

I've emailed Walden Farms at the email provided on their webpage at http://www.waldenfarms.com/ and they've sent me a pretty fast response asking for my name ("Dear Consumer") and address so they can send me the Ingredient List I specifically requested.

Here's my note that I sent to them:

Quote:

Please be kind enough to point me to the website or provide an attachment in reply, of the Ingredients List and Nutrition Facts for your new Calorie Free product line? Particularly your Chocolate Syrup.

I'll keep you posted but it may take a while, being SnailMail response!

judi,
that's great news . i wonder why i never got a response?
oh well, can't wait to hear the list. did you ask for all flavors or one in particular? just curious. thanks again judi

Just a thought. I ordered some products through Netrition today. I didn't check Walden Farms' line, but all of the things I did order had complete nutritional information (nutrients and ingredients). So it might be worth a quick check there.

Judi, your new avatar cracks me up! Your standing dogs look like aliens from outer space!

Wa'il

... on the left?

ROTFL!

Glad you like my baby pictures, Wa'il!

JustAGirl, what you see is what you get, in my note to Walden Farms as quoted in the post above. I guess I get what I get when it gets here...

Alto , I had searched Netrition but they don't seem to carry Walden Farms (and they would get the info from Walden Farms in any case).

There's still the possibility that someone out there has some or all of the products and can post Ingredient List info here before the snail mail arrives... I live in hope.

from an ad at the Low Carb Zone At Atkinsfriends.com, they have user ratings for products. The Walden Farms dressing got 9 votes, for a rating of 3.1 out of 5. One person wrote "This stuff is ok, but reminds me a lot of when I went camping with a bunch of guys and woke up and my face was sticky."

Another person wrote, "ehhh, this was okay...i will use it definitely, but I will stick to oil and gorgonzola when i run out...not too great, but edible anyways..." There were also two positive reviews.

Last time I checked, onion and garlic powders, egg yolks, tomato paste, pickle relish, lemon juice, maltodextrose and modified food starch all had calories and carbs. Hmm, perhaps some Creative Math has taken place here?

Doreen

Even using only the Calorie count for the first product listed for one 2-Tbsp Serving, and assuming 0.49g fat and 0.49g protein (which allows the manufacturer to round those grams to zero on the label), and using the really basic cals-per-gram numbers of 4-9-4....
kCals--fat g--pro g--total carb g---t.f. carb cals-----t.f. ECC
12.00--0.49--0.49-----------------------5.63---------1.4g/Serving

If the fat and protein grams are actually lower than the numbers I've assumed here, the carb grams will be higher. Ipso Facto.

Not at ALL zero-calorie (12 is not 0) OR zero-carb.

how can they get away with that? is there anything we can do about scams like this?

Send a note to the manufacturer, specifying in detail what it is you don't like about what they doing ( or not doing )... Send a copy to the vendor you buy it from (or WOULD buy it from, such as CarbSmart and/or Netrition and/or LowCarb.com etc. etc.) so they know what the customers think, as well!

If everybody does that about things that bother them, the "market driven" approach will work over time!

Just Do It!

Here it is 2 full months after I sent the email request and today I received in the mail an envelope from Walden Farms.

Enclosed is a blank "Dear Store Manager" letter for me to use (NOT) in all caps and full of exclamations, about requesting the "CALORIE FREE!!!!" and "ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS!!!" Walden Farms products... right on top. That put me off right away

Then there's a mail-order form.

Then there are 3 lovely new printed pages (colour, too) with Nutrition Facts and Ingredient List information for the 3 main lines, Calorie Free Dressings, Calorie Free Dips and Calorie Free miscellaneous Sauces.

Well, that's a lot of info. If anybody wants a fax copy of these 3 sheets, please PM (Private Message) me for the number or click on my webpage logo in the signature here, page down and click through to my Products page, at the bottom are fax numbers.

Meanwhile, this thread started with the "Calorie Free Chocolate Sauce", one of their newer products, so here's the scoop from the manufacturer:

Chocolate Syrup, 2 Tbsp Serving Size, 12 Servings
Calories = 0, Fat Calories = 0
Fat = 0g, Chol = 0mg
Total Carb = 0g, Fiber = 0g, Sugars = 0g
Protein = 0g
Sodium = 30mg
Ingredients: Triple Filtered Purified Water, Defatted Cocoa Powder, MaltoDextrin, Caramel Color, Natural Flavors, Salt, Food Starch Modified, Xantham Gum, Sucralose, Potassium Sorbate, Polysorbate 50, Vanilla, Citric Acid.

By the way, if it's even half water and the rest is cocoa, etc., well 1 Tbsp of unsweetened cocoa = 12 Calories, 1g Fat, 1g Protein, 3g Carb including 2g Fiber and 1 mg Sodium. That's without the 3rd ingredient (by volume according to the law) of maltodextrin. Something's not RIGHT here...