Help me to understand net carbs in the Atkins bars!

[Lia]

hi.. All... my ex gave my son... in the first week of induction... an atkins bar... because it said.. 2 net grams of carbs.. he failed to really read the label where it says one bar has 23 grams. Please explain to me the net part... no wonder my son gained a lb... thaks.. Lia

[not2late]

Originally Posted by Lia

hi.. All... my ex gave my son... in the first week of induction... an atkins bar... because it said.. 2 net grams of carbs.. he failed to really read the label where it says one bar has 23 grams. Please explain to me the net part... no wonder my son gained a lb... thaks.. Lia

The bars have stuff in it like polydextrose and glycerine which are non-nutritive carbohydrate fillers. They allegedly have no impact on blood sugars.

By the way, if your son is a teenager or child, he would best be served by following the diet in Feed Your Kid Well by Fred Pescatore MD. The diet in that book was the diet used by the Atkins CEnter for their child and teenaged patients. It is specially formulated to met the nutritional needs of a growing child/teen. Atkins is an adult diet.

[Lia]

hi.. the question was not answered... if he eats this.. is he over the 20 grams allowed? so.. if the grams in these bars are non nutritive... carb fillers.. they don't cause a weight gain due to no impact on the blood sugars? Lia

[Elizellen]

The question of how many net carbs to count for an Atkins bar is a frequently debated one I am afraid which many people have different opinions on.

As for whether they are suitable for induction my personal take is 'no' because they contain ingredients that are not allowed on induction.

[Lia]

hi.. so what is net carbs vs carbs.. maybe I missed it in the book.. I eat such a plain diet.. I never thought of net carbs..

[JulieB]

Net carbs are Total carbs - fibre. You don't have to count Fibre as carbs on Atkins.

[ziggy]

some people can absorb up to 50% of sugar alcohals so if it had 20 grams of sugar alcohals for some people that could be 10 net carbs

but for me sugar alcohals give me the runs

also atkin bars say they are induction freindly but they are not they are more like a Rung 6 food but they also got soy so i would avoid them

they also spark food craveings in alot of people and can cause weight loss stalls

they are not natural foods your better off makeing some homemade low carb bar that you know has healthy stuff in it

in my opinion to be on the 100% safe side i would count every carbohydrate as a net carb except for fiber fiber carbs dont count

[wackielady]

to get the net carbs:

carbohydrates - fiber - sugar alcohols = net carbs.

[matawguro]

Atkins bars uses the Net Atkins Count and not net carbs as defined in DANDR. I haven't seen their packaging lately, but based on their web site, Atkins Nutritionals is passing off the Net Atkins Count (patent pending) as net carbs, which are not the same no matter how you dice it.

Here's the short description of the Net Atkins Count from the link above...

The new program is based on the glycemic index (GI), a ranking of carbohydrate-containing foods according to how quickly they raise blood-sugar levels. The higher the glycemic index, the faster a particular food raises blood sugar. Foods with a low GI are preferable because they don't cause spikes in blood sugar. More important for dieters, low-GI foods help promote weight loss.

My main beef with this is the same as my beef with the Glycemic Index. The GI was derived by measuring the blood-sugar raising effect of various foods on people with normal blood sugar. If you're on these boards because you're overweight or obese, there's a good chance you're already insulin resistant to some extent and GI means squat.