Lowcarbezine!

Dopey "Low-Carb" (HAH!) Product of the Week

Y'know those inserts in the Sunday paper? The ones that are nothing but coupons? I found the most hilarious attempt at wooing the low carb market in there the other day.

It seems that Auntie Anne's, a chain of mall stores selling fresh-baked soft pretzels, is coming after us with their new "Smart Bites" for those, as they say, "counting carbs." Smart Bites are little nuggets of pretzel, served in a cup, and each nugget has "just" 1 net carb.

Of course, you can make anything look low carb if you just divide it up into small enough pieces. Heck, Coca-Cola has less than 2 grams of carbohydrate per tablespoon! Doesn't change the fact that it has 40 grams per can. That cup contains about fifteen Smart Bites, so you're going to be counting quite a few carbs. If my elementary school arithmetic is holding up, that's 15 grams of usable carbohydrate per serving, or roughly the level I try to stick to in a meal, fercryinoutloud. It sure doesn't qualify Auntie Anne's Smart Bites as low carb.

Furthermore, despite having "more protein and fiber" than Auntie Anne's regular pretzels, I'm betting that Smart Bites derive most of their usable carbs from refined white flour, also spelled j-u-n-k.

Are Auntie Anne's Smart Bites an improvement over their regular pretzels? Apparently they are - but then, an Original Pretzel will run you 69 grams of usable carb, and a "Glazin' Raisin" Pretzel has a whopping 103 grams of usable carb, so there is a lot of room for improvement. Smart Bites are in the same category as the C2, Pepsi Edge, and "reduced sugar" cereals I wrote about last issue - still full of garbage, just less of it.

I'd like to point out here that for about the same usable carb count as a cup of Auntie Anne's Smart Bites you could eat a medium apple, a medium ear of corn on the cob, a slice-and-a-half of Natural Ovens Sunny Millet Bread, or any number of other foods which would be far more nutritious and satisfy your hunger far longer. If you really have an extra 15 grams to blow, Auntie Anne's Smart Bites are not your best choice by a long shot.

I know I hammer on this issue, but I worry that new low carbers will figure that they can just replace all that high carb processed junk with reduced carb processed junk, and they'll lose weight and improve their health. For most people this is simply untrue; most people have to drop below 50 grams of non-fiber carbs per day to lose weight, and many have to drop even lower than that, unless they couple carb reduction with pretty strict calorie counting. Too, I hear frequently from people who tell me that the day they started adding a lot of reduced carb "treats" to their diet was the day their weight loss stopped. "When you plateau, lose the treats" is a very good rule to live by.

I strongly suspect that a low carbohydrate diet based on processed stuff will not deliver anything like the health benefits of a low carb diet based on real food. Carbohydrates from vegetables, fruit, and nuts and seeds come with vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals. Carbohydrates from processed low carb junk do not. Too, hunger is not solely a response to needing calories from food. You can also feel hungry because your body is craving nutrients it isn't getting. Processed stuff can't fill that hunger.

Please, folks, eat real food. Real food, real food, real food. Meat, poultry, fish, eggs, cheese, nuts, seeds, vegetables, low sugar fruits are what a low carb diet is about, not chee-zee junk food that still contain enough carbs for a whole meal. If once or twice a year (NOT once or twice a week) you're really craving a hot pretzel, Smart Bites are better than a Glazin' Raisin or Original Pretzel. Other than that, they have no place in a healthy low carb diet.

Posted by HoldTheToast at August 3, 2004 08:37 PM