Anyone else not really buying the whole "Net Carb" thing?

I mean really, just because it's fiberous carbs doesn't mean your body is still not using those carbs!

Yes high fiber carbs are very healthy and good for use, but I really don't think they should be excluded from your totally daily carb count!

It's just another trick from food manufactures that can't figure out a cheaper way to further reduce their carb count!


I mean really, if you just counted "Net Carbs" and you are only allowed 50 carbs per day, your REAL totally carb count could be well over 100 grams?

The only thing your body is using fiber for is cleaning out your colon. Fiber isn't digested by the body.

Debbie

Yes fiber is a bulking, filling food, that helps the digestive process, but I still think that during that process your body absorbs the carbs within that fiberous food.

To think that high fiber carbs are just passing through you is just not true.

Ice111111

Fiber is, by definition, the material that is not digested. The carbs that you get from a fibrous plant such as broccoli are those that are digested and they do count. The fiber is the part that goes in and comes out.

Cattle can digest fiber because they have four stomachs that break down the fiber into products that can eventually be digested by them.

A lot of commercial products have non-fiber material that they also subtract to get net carbs. This is misleading as some of these products (sugar alcohols) are partially digested and do provide energy for the body.

Net Carbs



Debbie

well yes I know that the fiber basically goes through us, but the carbs within that fiber are absorbed. If that wasn't the case then I could eat as much fiber as I wanted and still stay in ketosis.

Now some true facts, is that fiberous foods do not raise your blood sugar.

So basically just counting "Net carbs" is very misleading

The number of fiber grams is part of the total carb count; net carbs are the carbs digested by the body in that food, while fiber carbs are the undigested ones. So, if a piece of broccoli has 6 carbs = 4 usable carbs + 2 fiber carbs, you will absorb the 4 usable carbs & not the fiber carbs. therefore that broccoli you just ate has 4 net carbs.
I haven;t tried the experiment, but yes, if you ate pure fiber, you could eat all you want - though you'd better stay close to the bathroom !!

The sugar alcohols (SA) & glycerin used in manufactured products is different though. Those are not fiber; most people on these boards take the fiber out of the carb count but not the SA, etc

but if this was really true, we would be able to eat as my "All Bran" as we want (well if they didn't add sugar) because really, without the sugar, it would be like 2 Net carbs per bowl!

I really thing that these non "net carbs" are still being absorbed but just not counted, because they don't cause a huge spike in your blood sugar level.

My thought is this! Take two people on the same diet, Person A is counting all carbs and Person B is just counting "Net carbs", I think Person A will end up doing much better (in this low carb game).

Nope

Fiber

I now know more about fiber than I ever wanted to

Debbie

Great link! Thanks Debbie!


Doreen

I don't think you read my post right! I said, if they did not add any sugar!

That IS without adding sugar, Ice.

Check for yourself: http://www.lowcarb.ca/low-carb-tool...8&search=submit

Rosebud

Yes I think Ice's point was if the manufacturer didn't add sugar and HFCS etc in the ingredients;



- and in that case the net carbs would be very low ... and you could eat a lot of it, because the remaining fibre would have no effect on blood sugar or insulin.

Ice, you might me interested to know, that outside North America, fibre and carbohydrate are calculated and listed seperately - which makes it even easier for "us" to know what the effective/net carbs are.

Cheers,

Malcolm

Others have explained this, but it seems that Ice is stuck on an incorrect idea. When a label tells us how many carbs are in something, they are giving total carbohydrates. Carbohydrates include sugars and other digestible carbs, plus "dietary fiber." Dietary fiber, by definition, is not digestible by humans. It's useful, to be sure, but you could eat pure cellulose -- probably the most common fiber -- all day long and, basically, you'd starve. Cows can convert cellulose to sugar, and thus can burn it for energy, but we can't.

Paper is cellulose. Wood is mostly cellulose.

The "carbohydrate" count on a label -- the total carbs -- includes the fiber. Yes, there are digestible carbohydrates mixed in with the cellulose. That is why the total carbs are more than the fiber carbs! Always! With pure fiber, total carbs will equal fiber carbs.

So to determine how much *digestible* carbohydrates are in a food, you take the total carbs and subtract the *indigestible* carbs. This result excludes the part that you cannot digest. The basic concept of "net carbs" is quite correct.

However, then there are sugar alcohols. Sugar alcohols are carbohydrates, and they are more or less digestible, but they are so slowly digestible that it seems they can also be subtracted with the fiber, and that is what some food mfrs do when they report "net carbs." There is some controversy about this, not about fiber.

However, it is probably true that *most* of the sugar alcohol is not digested. Still, I'd use Splenda (sucralose) if I want the true low-carb result. The key with sucralose is that it is so powerfully sweet that it is only used in tiny quantities, too little to matter. A Splenda packet says that it is 1 gram of carb; that gram is almost entirely from the carrier substances, dextrose and maltodextrin, not from the sucralose. Sucralose in bags has no dextrose, only maltodextrin as a carrier, and the label reports "less than 1 g." in a serving. When sucralose is added to foods, the actual carbs added would be completely negligible, about 7 milligrams per equivalent sweetness to a teaspoon of sugar. Basically, it doesn't matter if we can burn sucralose or not.

Back to the original point. I'll give an example: diced celery is given in one carb-counter I looked at as 2.2 grams of carb per 1/2 cup serving. Celery is mostly water! The fiber is given as 1 gram. This means that total carbs, including the fiber, is 1 gram. Subtract the fiber, which is the indigestible part, and you get 1.2 grams of digestible carbohydrates. Yes, they are mixed in with the fiber, which *also* helps to slow their digestion. What is called "fiber" is exactly the completely indigestible part, usually cellulose. No part of it ends up in your bloodstream, it is all excreted. No matter what you do, short of feeding it to a cow, and then eating the cow, your body can't get more carbs out of the celery serving than 1.2.