HELP! Special Category Foods Question

[mission to lose]

Originally Posted by DarlingBri

Note: I've updated this answer upon closer reading. Sorry, the original text is not very clear but grammatically it means:

You can have 10 - 20 olives and half a small avocado, and either an ounce of sour cream or 3 ounces of heavy cream. In addition, you can also have 2 - 3 tablespoons of lemon or lime juice, regardless.

In terms of what he actually meant, I have no idea, but that's what it says. If it was a list of four things you had to choose between, it would be:

10 to 20 olives, half a small avocado, an ounce of sour cream, or three ounces of unsweetened heavy cream

I'd be interested to see what clarification anyone got from Atkins as I'm only slightly less confused now. Also, this is exactly why the semicolon is a wonderful and useful thing: 10 - 20 olives; half a small avocado; an ounce of sour cream or three ounces of heavy cream would be entirely understandable.

Darling Bri,

OK, thanks I agree with you, grammatically, that's what I thought it meant. And as you say, is that what was intended?

I suppose there will always be different opinions over this.

Have a great evening!

[Elizellen]

Originally Posted by mission to lose

Well for what it's worth, I called Atkins Nutritionals Inc. in Denver today and they said, yes, it means you can have all listed every day if you wished, but again, it could slow down your weight loss. Are they the "right" Atkins people to ask? I don't know.

It would depend on whether you decide to go by what was written by Dr Atkins in DANDR as we do here on ADBB or not.

[DarlingBri]

Elizellen, I agree that's what it should say and probably what he meant to say (an avocado, 20 olives and sour cream seems like a lot of extra calories to me), but I think you can make a compelling argument that it isn't what ultimately ended up being said.

There may also be an issue with Oxford commas here.

[Elizellen]

Originally Posted by DarlingBri

Elizellen, I agree that's what it should say and probably what he meant to say (an avocado, 20 olives and sour cream seems like a lot of extra calories to me), but I think you can make a compelling argument that it isn't what ultimately ended up being said.

There may also be an issue with Oxford commas here.

Interesting link, Bri. I had never come across the comma being included before 'and' or 'or' in a list.

[DarlingBri]

Just to complicate things, I pulled out the 1999 edition of NDR.

Olives are listed as a Salad vegetable, and avocados are listed as Additional Vegetables - so at the time, both were 100% Induction-legal foods treated as all other vegetables on the Salad and Other lists. Sour cream is listed as an allowed salad garnish. There is no Special Foods category.

Obviously this turned out to be not such a hot idea because the Special Foods category was created in the 2002 edition and limits were placed on all of these foods.

I'm inclined to believe this means you can have 10 olives and 1/2 an avocado each day as long as you count it in your carbs and it doesn't slow your weight loss.

Obviously can does not mean should and the above is not in any way a conclusive answer. I'm just looking for clues and drawing my own conclusions here. I personally would not eat those foods daily; they are pretty rich. I would rather save those foods for a weekly, planned menu treat to be conservative.