So I have been doing a lot of research on what you can and what you cannot have on an Atkins diet. In everything I have read and watched I have not seen an answer to one question I have. That question is...

Is it ok to eat something that has a gram of sugar in it?

When looking at labels some things have 1g carb with NO grams of sugar. Good to eat, right? But what if something has 1g carb with 1g sugar? Is it ok to eat?

I have seen people say that Ranch dressing is ok to eat (in moderation), but Ranch dressing has 1g carb and 1g sugar per serving.

From what I have read about consuming sugar it hinders your fat burning process. Or maybe it slows it down.

I know there are a bunch of people on this forum who are very knowledgeable about this stuff.

So, is it ok to have 1g or 2g or even 3g of sugar in a single day? I'm not looking to start fights or anything ...I just wanna know...

I ate 20 net carbs today with very little (if any) starchy foods. I'm pretty sure that most of those carbs were sugar, including some fructose. Sugar is found in vegetables, nuts, and fruit and I eat a good amount of plant based foods. It really comes down to what works for you. I'll tell you what didn't work for me:

For much of the first year that I ate low carb I was still insulin resistant and I had higher than optimal blood sugars. Even a few grams of sugar in sauces (like catchup, stir fry sauce, etc) could spike and crash my blood sugar leaving me hovering around the pantry craving carbs. Overcooked veggies (even induction friendly veggies) and pureed veggies in soups could spike my blood sugar and cause cravings. I learned a lot about myself tracking my blood sugar in 30 minute intervals after eating. I learned that I did better with fresh, uncooked veggies (like a good salad). I learned to eat my carbs last in a meal. Combining high glycemic index foods with low glycemic index foods dampens or buffers the absorption of the sugar. So even the order in which I ate my foods made a noticeable difference in how satisfied I was from a meal. Fiber with the meal helps, too. A nice slow rise and fall in BG = satiety. A spike and crash = thinking about having more food not long after a meal.

Another thing that didn't work for me was simply counting carbs and staying within limits. On failed diets of the past I'd save up carbs by eating nearly all fat and protein for breakfast and lunch so that I could have a cookie, an apple, or a slice of bread with dinner. That was a bad idea. Being very carb sensitive, those were what Gary Taubes refers to as "Bad calories". I needed to make a clean break from "bad calorie" foods and continuously working them into my diet just kept me craving them. This time I deprived myself of them until I no longer felt deprived. I didn't realize that if you simply stop eating the foods that you used to love, your brain will forget about them and cut the ties. I realized that although I thought that I loved bread, pizza, pasta, and sweets, it was actually the food itself that made me feel like I needed it. For me those things are very addictive. I didn't realize that until I was free from the addiction. I'm 3 years into this lifelong journey and I still don't eat most of what I used to consider my favorite foods. And I'm totally fine with that.

About a year into this WOE my blood sugars normalized. My insulin resistance was resolved. Low carb meals that used to send my blood sugar well over 150 would never even crack 100. My body was tolerating carbs much better. After that point a few carbs in a stir fry sauce or catsup had little effect on my blood sugar. I didn't have to be so careful about each and every carb. However, I did find that when I added back too many carbs I had trouble eating within limits and I would gain weight. For me that limit appears to be around 40 net carbs. Others may be able to eat more and I know that some have to eat less in order to lose or remain weight stable.

So I guess the moral of this story is that you should use your diet to figure out how you need to eat for life. Get your diet right and everything else will fall into place.

You don't indicate where you live, but if in North America, if a nutrition label says 1g carbs, 1g sugar, that carb is sugar (i.e. 1g total, not 2g), not starch or fiber. And in the US, anything less than 1.0g carbs can be rounded down to "0", so 0 does not always mean no sugar. It is better to get your 20g of carbs on Induction from real foods, for the nutrients, but a couple from things like commercial full-fat dressing has always worked OK for me. Try it and see how it goes for you. If it helps you stay on the diet, it can be worth it. But also check the ingredient list for things like MSG and other chemicals that may cause more inflammation/water-retention than sugar.

Hi, SKOL. You're smart to wonder about the details.

In some versions of Atkins (I can't find one at the moment!), there's an allowance for commercial bottled salad dressings containing less than 1g sugar per serving. This helps make the plan more user friendly, as Deirdra says. However, those bottled dressings, like all commercial "food products," have a lot of other stuff in them besides sugar. Scary unpronounceable stuff.

So if you want to get off to a great start, making your own salad dressing with lovely olive oil and seasonings is a good way to go.

Some people avoid mayonnaise for the reason of sugar content, and also because most mayo is made with soybean oil. Commercial mayo is one of my convenience foods--I don't make my own. But I limit the quantity.

Back to the question of sugar. Technically, "sugar" is simply a name for one of the chemical configurations of carbohydrate. All carbohydrate--including lettuce--turns into glucose (a form of sugar) for use as fuel in your body. So whether it's on the label as sugar--meaning added sugar--or just some mystery carbohydrate, one gram or less probably won't hurt you. But count all the grams you eat! They do add up.

As a sidelight, food manufacturers are very clever at dodging the admission of sugar. Read the labels and you'll see about a hundred different names for sugar, including healthy-sounding stuff like "agave nectar" and "natural organic honey." Duh. It's sugar.

The answer? Don't eat stuff with a label on it, mostly.

Best wishes.

I agree with Barbara. Salad dressing is about the easiest thing you can make. I use olive oil and apple cider vinegar in a ratio of 3/1, a clove of crushed garlic and some spices. Tastes good, simple to make and no added nasty ingredients.

Jean

thanks for the posts...they help...

I like the idea of making my own salad dressing...I have made some before and enjoyed it...kind of forgot about it...

thanks again.

I don't mean to be combative, but i looked up Hellmann's Real Mayo nutrition facts and there is zero sugar and zero carbs in that product.

In the Uk they list the nutrition numbers "per 100 grams or mls" rather than "per (teeny tiny) serving" so our counts are more accurate.

So from the Hellmans Mayo label in my fridge
100g (which is about 7 tablespoons) has 3g net carbs/sugars, making each tablespoon a bit under 0.5g net carbs.

If I recall correctly, in many countries they are allowed to say "zero" if the true number is under 0.5, so could legally claim zero carbs for one tablespoon of it, so anyone not aware of this might use say 1/4 cup thinking they were adding no carbs when in reality they were adding just under 2 net carbs.

Not a huge error but over several meals would add up!!

Really? No sugar in the ingredient list. I'm pretty sure there is. Maybe a new formula now. I think the amount they used to use is negligible tho unless you ate a few tubs of it. I'm more interested in steering clear of eating soybean oil in great quantities - I think there's a Mayo called "Dukes" or something from the south that totes no sugar added.

It's always a good idea to check the actual label on the actual product in the store--mayo and anything else. Hellman's (also called Best Foods in some parts of the U.S.) may have different formulations from one region to another. In any case, it's not enough sugar to be alarming.

My Hellman's mayo has sugar, but it's listed in the ingredients after salt, so there's more sodium chloride than sugar in it. It has 80 milligrams of sodium per tablespoon. 100 grams of sodium chloride has 40 grams of sodium...so 80 milligrams sodium translates to 200 milligrams, so there's 0.2 or less grams of sugar per tablespoon in my jar, assuming that they're following highest to lowest ingredient content labeling rules.

In addition to the sugar, Hellmans contains eggs, lemon juice & spices which all have small amounts of carbs, so it would be impossible for a serving to contain 0.00 g carbs. It is the allowed rounding down to "0" if under 0.5 or under 0.99, depending on the country, that Big Food uses to set the serving size.

I discovered Duke's mayonnaise a few years ago when DH and I retired to South Carolina. It's really delicious. Yep, the "real," full-fat version at least (they have several varieties) has absolutely no sugar added. I usually mix it with fatty fish so feel it cancels out at least some of the effect of the soybean oil. My guilty pleasure. Also, I don't glob mayo onto my food like I used to. I actually limit it to a tablespoon or two and, when I can, mix it in with mustard and/or horseradish.

Yes, according to Atkins to get through induction you need to limit your carbs, i.e. glucose, fructose, sucrose, etc. to 20g per day per week. The kind of carb does not matter unless it's fiber then you don't count it at all, i.e. net cabs. After induction you are supposed to increase your carbs until you find your carb limit then keep it just under that. 20g was selected as the vast, vast majority of people get through induction successfully at that level.

thanks everybody...