Low-Carb Meets Low-Glycemic
Two non-profits, The Carbohydrate Awareness Council (CAC) and the Glycemic Research Institute (GRI), announced today they are working in partnership to certify low-carb foods, restaurant meals and raw material ingredients used in making low-carb foods.

FALLS CHURCH, VA (PRWEB) May 3, 2004 –- Two non-profits, The Carbohydrate Awareness Council (CAC) and the Glycemic Research Institute (GRI), announced today they are working in partnership to certify low-carb foods, restaurant meals and raw material ingredients used in making low-carb foods.

"This is an exciting and much-needed development for the low-carb industry," said Regina Schumann, the council's COO. "The seals will provide consumers with a way to distinguish foods that are truly low in carbohydrate metabolic activity from those relying on unscientific carbohydrate deductions. Consumers should realize that only organizations with longstanding, demonstrated experience in a particular field can obtain a Certification Mark from the US Government. In addition, consumers can be confident that products bearing the seal will be in strict compliance with our high standards because they are enforced by Federal Statutes."

The CAC holds an exclusive license to co-promote the GRI’s “Carb Approved” certification marks, recently granted by the US Patent Office. The certification marks are the only seals that use a rigorous, scientifically-based testing protocol to determine the level of true, metabolically-active carbohydrate in a food, meal or ingredient. The two non-profits collaborated to establish a 5-gram carbohydrate limit per serving for foods to carry the certification mark. Restaurant meals will have a higher carbohydrate limit to bear the seal (to reflect the number of servings per meal) and ingredients used in manufacturing foods will be classed by type of ingredient.

The GRI, a 20 year-old non-profit headquartered in Washington, DC, already holds long-standing Certification Seals for low-glycemic foods. "With an existing understanding of the complexity of testing foods for compliance for low-glycemic parameters, we were well positioned to design and establish protocols for low-carb standards," said Dr. Ann de Wees Allen, Chief of Biomedical Research at the GRI, "what we needed was a scientifically committed partner in the low-carb arena. We chose the Carbohydrate Awareness Council because of their commitment to the scientific basis of low-carb diets and controlled-carb nutrition."

The CAC, a non-profit organization located in nearby Falls Church, VA, had already been working to establish a set of standard guidelines for the industry. "After a series of discussions we felt a co-venture such as this would best serve consumers and the industry. The GRI’s core competencies of testing, certification, clinical research, and expertise in generating human metabolic data were a perfect fit with the CAC’s ongoing mission” said Dr. Gil Wilshire, the President and Chief Scientific Officer of the CAC. “Our exclusive license of the GRI’s Carb-Approved certification mark will now allow the CAC to continue to lead the low carbohydrate movement in the strictly scientific, ethical and moral manner for which we are known.”

Application for use of the Carb-Approved Seal is available through the Carbohydrate Awareness Council and the Glycemic research Institute. For more information, please visit the council's website at http://www.carbaware.org or http://www.glycemic.com

http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2004/5/emw123225.htm