PHNUTR-L] Low-Carbohydrate Foods: Less Than Meets the Eye

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PHNUTR-L] Low-Carbohydrate Foods: Less Than Meets the Eye

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Apr 30, 2006 10:22 PDT

 

PHNUTR-L] Low-Carbohydrate Foods: Less Than Meets the Eye

Christina Stark cms11 at cornell.edu

Mon Jan 5 07:52:27 PST 2004

 

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Dear colleagues:

 

For those who don't to the University of California at

Berkeley Wellness Letter, I thought you might be interested in an

article, " Low Carbohydrate Foods: Less Than Meets the Eye " featured

this

month on their website at www.wellnessletter.com. It helps explain

the

meaning (or lack

thereof) behind the term " low carb " foods. Below is what I sent to

Cornell

Cooperative Extension educators in New York State.

 

Christina Stark, MS, RD, CDN

Division of Nutritional Sciences

Cornell University

 

 

Dear educators:

 

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a nice winter break.

 

For the new year many people resolve to lose weight. As high-protein

diets

such as Atkins continue in popularity, a craze has developed for

low-carbohydrate foods. Manufacturers are promoting a variety of

" low-carb " foods including breads, pasta, cereals, cakes, cookies

and

even

beer. Restaurants are labeling certain menu items as " low carb. " But

what

does that really mean? How many grams of carbohydrates can a food

have

and

still be labeled " low carb " ? Does a " low carb " food also qualify

as " low

 

calorie " ? What's the difference between " net impact

carbs, " " effective

carbs " and just plain " regular carbs " ? And how do they make bread

low in

 

carbohydrates anyway?

 

The answers to these questions and more can be found in the article

below,

" Low Carbohydrate Foods: Less Then Meets the Eye, " from the January

2004

 

issue of the University of California at Berkeley Wellness Letter.

The

article is featured this month on their website at

www.wellnessletter.com

and so is available to anyone. Just as there's no such thing as a

free

lunch, you'll discover there's no such thing as a legal definition

for a

 

" low-carbohydrate " food.

 

Christina

 

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Featured Article

January 2004

 

Low-Carb Foods: Less Than Meets the Eye

 

A few years ago the cry was " low-fat " or " nonfat, " as new food

products

came on the market positioned to appeal to the weight-conscious and

health-conscious. You could avoid most fat but still eat your ice

cream

and cookies. In some ways the trend to low-fat and fat-free foods

was

beneficial; in other ways it was not. Nonfat milk is a good thing,

but

nonfat junk food is still junk food, of course. Many consumers

failed to

 

notice that a low-fat cookie often has as many calories as the

regular

kind, and many assumed it was okay to eat the whole box.

 

Now the craze is for low-carbohydrate foods. If you've been to the

grocery

store lately, or even to McDonald's or Blimpie, you've seen

promotions

for

" low-carb " foods. Many breads, sandwiches, muffins, pasta, cereals,

tortillas, pizza crusts, beer, cakes, cookies, and other foods now

bear

" low-carb " labels. While the health claims are seldom spelled out,

the

implications are clear.

 

If you're following a low-carb diet (such as Atkins) that forbids or

severely limits bread, pasta, and other starchy foods, especially

those

made with white flour, you might think, well, here's a way to eat

some

bread and still stay on the diet. Indeed, many low-carb products are

sold

under the Atkins brand name. Or perhaps you're not on any diet but

are

just calorie-conscious. You may conclude, logically enough, that a

food

lower in carbs is also lower in calories. Or you may buy the new

stuff

because you're attracted to new products, and you think that there's

a

law

against false claims on food labels, so you conclude that low-carb

claims

must be (a) true and (b) meaningful.

 

In fact, " low-carb " is not what it seems. And any benefits these

foods

might offer for weight loss or nutrition are debatable, at best. If

you

replace carbohydrates with protein (that's the main change), you

still

have just as many calories. Furthermore, the labels are,

essentially,

meaningless. The FDA has no definition of " low-carbohydrate " and has

never

approved any low-carb labels. Any food can be so labeled.

 

Bringing down the carbs

 

* Here's how manufacturers reduce the carbs in various foods:

* They replace refined wheat flour with soy flour (higher in

protein),

soy protein, or wheat protein.

* They add extra fiber, such as wheat bran, oat bran, or other

fiber

(this is not a bad thing, but read on).

* They add high-fat ingredients such as nuts (again, not so

terrible:

nuts are good food, containing healthy fats).

* They replace sugar with sugar alcohols (maltitol, lactitol, or

sorbitol) or artificial sweeteners. This has been going on a long

timeever hear of sugarless or " dietetic " candy.

* For beers, they use certain chemicals in the brewing process

to

reduce carbohydrates in the brew. But the result is not very

different

from " lite " beers, long a market staple. Is the difference real,

though?

 

None of these changes are unhealthy. But these products end up

having

nearly as many calories as their regular counterparts, and cutting

calories is still the key to weight control. Protein has as many

calories

as carbs do, and fat has more than twice as many calories.

 

The products often have nearly as many carbs, too, but the

labels

disguise this fact with several tricks. Most often they subtract

certain

 

carbs, and provide a separate section listing a lower number, which

designates the remaining ones " effective carbs " or " net impact

carbs. "

The idea is that since fiber, for instance, doesn't affect blood

sugar

the way other carbs do, it doesn't count. So if a food has 10 grams

of

carbs, but 6 grams are fiber, the manufacturer simply subtracts the

6

and

claims only 4 " net impact " carbs. (Sometimes the results are clearly

impossible. Some low-carb bread labels, for example, claim that

nearly

all the carbs are fiber, yet the first ingredient is always some

sort of

 

flour -- a source of " regular " carbohydrates.) The calories in sugar

alcohols, too, can be subtracted, according to this logic, because

they

don' have the same effect on blood sugar as regular sugar. None of

this

is allowed by the FDA.

This sleight-of-hand can distract you from an accurate

comparison

between low-carb foods and conventional ones. Here are just three

examples:

* A slice of " low-carb " Atkins bread, for instance, has 60

calories and 8 grams of total carbs, though it claims to have only 3

" net

impact " carbs. A slice of a conventional " diet " bread typically has

50

calories and 10 grams of carbs. That isn't a significant difference.

* A 1-ounce low-carb chocolate bar has 155 calories and 12

grams

of fat, but no sugar; it claims to have only 1 " net impact " carb. A

regular bar has 150 calories and 10 grams of fat. (Some choice!)

Low-carb

candies are actually pretty much the same as the sugar-free candies

that

 

have been on the market for years.

* A 12-ounce can of Michelob Ultra ( " low-carb " ) has 95

calories

and 2.6 grams of carbs. Miller Lite has 96 calories and 3.2 grams of

carbs. Coors Lite has 102 calories and 5 grams of carbs. The

differences

 

are tiny. In effect, what's new is the label, not the product. No

way to

tell

 

Another problem: there is no legal definition of a low-carb

food.

The FDA has defined " low-fat, " for instance, but any food, even

Wonder

Bread, can be labeled " low-carbohydrate. " Moreover, fiber is

supposed to

 

be listed as part of the carbohydrates -- subtracted from it. The

FDA

does not define nutrients according to the effects they have on

blood

sugar, and for good reason. As we explained last month in our

article

about the glycemic index, these effects vary widely, depending on

what'

in your entire meal. There simply isn' any accurate way to calculate

it

for a food label. In any case, there is little or no evidence for

the

claim that some types of carbs are more likely to cause weight gain

than

 

others just because they affect blood sugar faster.

 

One good idea buried in the low-carb craze: It is better to

choose

high-fiber products over those made of refined wheat (white) flour.

But

that' hardly a new idea. If you want more fiber in your bread, there

are

 

lots of good conventional choices, made of whole wheat or other

whole

grains, on the shelves.

 

Less costs more, and tastes worse

 

And then there's the question of price. Low-carb almost

always

means high price. Low-carb beers cost more than lite. One low-carb

breakfast cereal costs nearly four times as much per serving as

regular

cereals. Atkins breads cost twice as much as most regular breads.

And

most low-carb foods sacrifice a lot in taste and texture. (Not the

candies, apparently, where chocolate flavors mask a lot.) Maybe this

is

a

good thing -- people will eat less of these foods, and the fad won't

last.

 

In the meantime, our advice: Don't be fooled by low-carb

foods.

There's no evidence that they'll help you lose weight. They are not

significantly more nutritious or less caloric than many regular

foods.

And they eat up food dollars better spent on plain good healthy

foods

such as fresh fruits and vegetables.

 

UC Berkeley Wellness Letter, January 2004

 

Ref:

http://www.wellnessletter.com/html/wl/wlFeatured.html?

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