At least in Montignac's newest book, The French Diet, he talks a lot about low glycemic foods. So it's not the number of carb grams he's talking about, but the quality of the carb food. White bread? bad. Potato? bad. Beans? good! Whole grain high fiber bread? good! They are sectioned off by glycemic value, and only low glycemic ones are mixed with fat. Moderate glycemic ones are mixed with no fat. Although both allow mixing with protein. The French Diet also makes no mention of separating fruits, but it seems Montignac's earlier books did.