The MakeMeThinner Support Forum

[Lisa Renee]

I have been trying to find information like this for a while because I noticed that everytime I eat SF mints, I had a huge spike in hunger and it seemed as though I stalled with my weight loss in the past. It is funny because my friends used to make jokes about sugar free mints and that they give people gas; however they never had that effect on me. I believe that's because I WAS digesting and absorbing the ingredients that some people don't. That explained why they had the gastro problems and I didnt'. So if you don't get a laxative effect from sugar free mints, you might be a lot like I am. I also noticed the same thing when I would eat diet bars or food that claimed to have like 2 "net carbs" but had about 30 carbs on the nutritional label. I found this article and I am going to paste it below and leave out the weblinks as I know that it's a no no here to post links. If I am not allowed to post this here, just let me know for future reference. If you already have discussions posted about this topic, then I apologize for the repeat. I just think this might help a lot of people, not all of them, as you can read below, not everyone is the same and some people CAN eat "sugar free" and have it not effect their ketosis. I think this is valuable information for some people who notice a stall in weight loss after adding SF mints or gum to their daily routine...IMHO



ARTICLE:

Should You Count Those "Net Carbs" or "Low Impact" Carbs
Every drugstore, supermarket, and department store in U.S. is filled with snack products that claim to be perfect for low carb diet. The labels on these products may list 24 grams of carbs but assure you that you only have to count 2 or 3 of these grams in your daily carb allotment. They may call these carbs "low impact carbs" or "net carbs" and display them promenently on the front of the product, but the carb count on the nutritional label--the only one that the FDA regulates will list a far higher carb count.


If these disappearing "net carbs" make you suspicious, you may prefer to buy products that list only a gram or two of carbs in their nutritional information. But a look at their ingredient list may show that mysteriour substances like glycerine or polydextrose are major ingredients of these bars, too--exact same substances reported on labels of bars that claim "3 grams of Net Carbs" on the front of the package and list 20-something grams of carbs in their nutritional information panel.

What's Going on Here?
Most of these "low carb" products are sweetened with substances called "sugar alcohols." Maltitol, lacitol, and sorbitol are some of names of these sweeteners. Despite the name, these aren't sugars or alcohols. They are hydrogenated starch molecules which are a byproduct of grain processing. These sugar alcohols are manufactured by the three large agribusiness companies: SPI Polyols, Roquette America, Inc. and Archer Daniels Midland. Having saturated world with high fructose corn syrup, these giant corn-producing companies have now turned to hydrogenated corn starch molecules as yet another way to wring profits out of surplus corn.

Despite wrapper claims, these sugar alcohols are metabolized. Each gram of a sugar alcohol turns into anywhere from less than 1 to as much as 3 calories. Erythritol comes in lowest, delivering less than one calorie per gram. Maltitol--the sugar alcohol found in most "low carb" foods is the highest, delivering 3 calories per gram. That is only a bit less than 4 calories you find in regular sugar and starch.

It is because these sugar alcohols can be metabolized as carbohydrates that US law requires that they be reported as carbohydrates on nutritional labels and why their calories are included in calorie counts. But though many food companies still mdo not report them in their label nutritional information.

Several years ago, after the FDA fined Atkins Nutritionals for ignoring the 20+ grams of glycerin found in their product in the nutritional panel of their Advantage Bars, the company invented the "Net Carbs" designation that it now places on the front of wrappers--but not on the nutritional panel. This ruse was so successful, they went on to licensed use of this phrase and Atkins "A" to other companies so that they too could continue deluding customers about the carb content of their foods. .

Small print on back of these label explains that fiber and sugar alcohols have a "negligible effect on blood sugar". This, they suggest means that you can ignore them, and magically converts foods that have 24 grams of carbs--and the associated calories--into foods with a diet-friendly 3 grams.

If it were true that these foods did not raise blood sugar, it would make them ideal for the low carb diet. However, it is not always true. Some lucky people can eat these low carb treats and still lose weight on a low carb diet. But hundreds of people who have stopped by the alt.support.diet.low-carb news group to ask why their weight loss has stopped cold, discover that it is these sugar alcohol-laden low carb junk foods that have caused their long-term stalls.

Lying Labels?
The reason for this, is quite simply, that sugar alcohols, particularly Maltitol, the one that is most common in these products, can have a very significant impact on blood sugar. This isn't speculation. It's a fact. Many people with diabetes, who track any rise in their blood sugar with a blood sugar meter, find that these products cause a significant rise in their blood sugar, contrary to the label claims.
I'm one of them. My blood sugar rises almost as high when I eat a maltitol-sweetened Russell Stover "No Sugar" candy as it does if I eat a regular Russell Stover candy of same size. The only difference is that it takes two hours for the blood sugar rise to occur when I eat the "no sugar" candy compared to the one hour that it takes when I eat regular candy. This blood sugar rise is followed by a period of low blood sugar--the hallmark of an insulin response--and, for me, the trigger for intense, diet-busting hunger. So much for "truth in labeling."

I am not only person who has found this to be true. Fran McCullough warns readers of the very high blood sugar spikes reported by diabetics after eating glycerine-containing Atkins bars in her book, Living Low Carb.

A comprehensive review published by Canadian Journal of Diabetes gives a very good overview of the scientific research into how sugar alcohols affect both normal people and people with diabetes. Note the finding, on Page 5, that for normal people, research shows that chocolate bars sweetened with maltitol raised the blood sugar of normal people as high as did chocolate bars sweetened with sucrose--table sugar.

Not for Everyone!
However, there are other people with diabetes who report that they don't see a blood sugar rise when they eat foods containing these sugar alcohols. They find these products give them a way to incorporate legitimate treats into their diets and are grateful that they are now so plentiful.

There are also a number of successful low carbers who report in diet newsgroup that they have been able to lose significant amounts of weight while including these "low carb" treats in their food plans on a daily basis. You will often find them railing against "puritanism" of those who warn new dieters against them.

So, clearly these products do not affect everyone in same way. For some people they are a godsend. For others, they turn out to be "Stall in a Box."

Why Do Sugar Alcohols Only Affect Some People?
Since it seems that only a subset of the population metabolizes sugar alcohols as sugar, it is quite possible that some people lack some enzyme(s) needed to digest them and turn them into blood sugar. Since those people's bodies can't turn these sugar alcohols into glucose, they do not experience a blood sugar rise when they eat them.

Lending some support to this idea is fact that some of the people who report that they did not experience a blood sugar rise when they ate a product with a sugar alcohol in it, add that they experienced intense diarrhea or gas later on. These are classic symptoms of what happens when starches pass undigested into lower gut where they may be fermented by bacteria (causing gas) or suck water out of cells lining the colon (causing diarrhea).

Many of us who do get blood sugar rise do not experience this diarrhea. Our digestive enzymes appear to be able to break down these hydrogenated starches into glucose--though given the time lag, this happens slowly.

Diabetes expert Rick Mendosa has a very interesting web page that points out "If the sugar alcohols had no impact on our blood glucose, they would have a glycemic index of zero. With the the December 2003 publication of Geoffrey Livesey’s amazing review of sugar alcohols, we now know a lot more about them than ever before. His article, "Health potential of polyols as sugar replacers, with emphasis on low glycemic properties," is in Nutrition Research Reviews 2003;16:163-91.

Mendosa goes on to say: "Only two of the sugar alcohols have a GI of zero, according to Livesey’s research. These are mannitol and erythritol. Several others have a very low GI, but two maltitol syrups have a GI greater than 50. This is a higher GI value than that of spaghetti, orange juice, or carrots."

What about Glycerine?
Glycerine is another sweet additive that manufacturers add to low carb bars. Here again, you'll find tha, because manufacturers claim glycerine does not raise blood sugar they omit it in the carb section of the label information or, if they do list it, they do not include it in number of diet-counted "impact" carbs. ( Glycerine is sometimes spelled Glycerin and is another name for glycerol.)

As Lee Rodgers, proprietor of The Low Carb Retreat explains that it is only true that Glycerine does not raise blood sugar when people are not low carbing. Rogers states:

When liver glycogen is full, glycerol is converted to fat.
When liver glycogen is empty, glycerol is converted to glucose.
And sometimes just goes right through without doing anything
In short, if you are in ketosis (having emptied your liver of glycogen, its stored carbs) glycerine is likely to turn into blood sugar, and then, of course, it raises insulin, defeating mechanism by which low carb weight loss takes place.

This past issue of Rick Mendosa's Diabetes Update Discusses in more detail why FDA insists that glycerine must be treated as a carbohydrate on product labels.

What about Fiber?
Perhaps the most confusing part of new "net carbs" designation is that it combines sugar alcohols and fiber in the same designation. This is unfortunate.

Fiber, unlike sugar alcohols, is not metabolized into a significant amount of calories and does not turn into blood sugar. Therefore it can usually be deducted from a food's total carb count.

But even here, a little caution is required. That's because labeling laws outside United States often treat fiber differently. In many European countries, fiber is already deducted from the label's total carb count. For example, imported Scandinavian bran crackers that list 3 grams of carbohydrate and 3 grams of fiber do not contain zero grams of carbohydrate. If they followed U.S. labeling conventions, their labels would show 6 grams of carbohydrate and 3 grams of fiber, since the European labels have already deducted the fiber from the total. This is also true of many imported chocolates.

To make it even more confusing, many U.S. nut labels also deduct fiber from total counts, too--walnuts in particular. Despite fact that Walnut labels usually say "3 grams total carbohydrate, 3 grams fiber" walnuts are not a zero carb treat! They contain about 2 grams of carbohydrate per ounce.

Net Carbs and Restaurant Food
Where "net carb" designation becomes truly dangerous is in restaurants because new "low carb" restaurant menus do not give you complete nutritional data or any hint of an item's ingredients, only the "net carb" count.

So for all you know, that "3 gram net carbs" cheese cake may contain 40 grams of maltitol, which is the equivalent of 30 grams of sugar. Nor can you distinguish between a food that contains 10 grams of fiber and one that contains 10 grams of a lacitol, the sugar alcohol many dieters have found causes profound diarrhea. All you know when you see that "net carbs" designation is that the carb count of the food you are about to eat is much higher than what restaurant would have to report were it giving you legal carb counts. You can hope that the additional carbs are fiber, but you may very well be wrong.

So What Does This Mean for You?
If you are just starting out low carbing, you would be well advised to treat with caution any supposedly "low carb" product that cites net carbs rather than total carbs. If you are one of people who do metabolize sugar alcohols, these "low impact carbs" will turn into regular, old, high-impact glucose, and eating a couple of these treats each day can easily derail your low carb diet by adding another 20 to 40 grams of carbohydrate to your intake.

That's why you might be wise to try low carbing without any of these suspect foods for the first few weeks of your diet until you have become accustomed to how your body feels when your blood sugar has stabilized on a truly low carb regimen. If you crave a sweet treat during these first few weeks, try one of truly low carb treats and snacks whose recipes have been posted on web. You can find these recipes using Google Groups Advanced Search scanning the alt.support.diet.low-carb newsgroup for term "REC." You'll find hundreds of recipes containing no "hidden carbs" at all. Do this until you've gotten the hang of what low carbing feels like to your body.

Once you've gotten into a steady low carb regimen and are losing weight steadily, you can test these commercial "low carb" products to see what effect they have on you. If you keep losing weight after introducing them, you can relax. You are one of lucky ones who can, in fact, treat them as having "low impact" carbs. If you don't, well, for you there's no free lunch. Continue making your own truly low carb treats--and losing weight.

If you are diabetic, you don't have to guess about how sugar alcohols affect you. You can turn to your trusty blood sugar meter to see what they do to your blood sugar. But if you test, test products containing sugar alcohols 2 and 3 hours after eating. Testing only at one hour after eating may be too early and you may miss blood sugar spikes they cause. With the new "low carb" pastas, you may have to test as many as 5 hours after eating and you should also look at your fasting blood sugar the next morning. Several people have reported that while they didn't spike on the low carb pastas, their fasting blood sugars were significantly elevated the next morning.

Watch Out for Increased Hunger
No matter what you see on your scale or observe on a blood sugar meter, be alert for an increase in your hunger level when you eat these "net carbs" foods. My own experience and that of some other low carb dieters who have reported this on the newsgroup is that some of "low carb" products made with sugar alcohols cause an increase in hunger that is out of proportion to the blood sugar readings they produce. I have found this especially noticeable with foods containing lacitol.

If you notice yourself suddenly getting hungry, or just plain eating more food after you have introduced a new "low carb" treat into your diet, back off for a few days and see what happens to your hunger level. If it goes down, you'll need to treat these foods with caution. The whole point of low carbing is to eliminate the hunger cravings that make dieting so difficult.

Don't Forget the Extra Calories
Even if you can eat snack products containing sugar alcohols without experiencing blood sugar spikes or hunger cravings, it's worth giving some thought to the question of how good an idea it is to fill your diet up with calorie-dense low carb junk food.

Though the best selling diet book authors make it sound as if low carbing somehow magically "melts fat away" this is not true. Low carbing evens out blood sugar which eliminates hunger and makes it very easy to eat a lot less. But to achieve long term weight loss you must eat less than you burn each day.

As you get closer to your weight goal, this becomes more and more evident. The smaller you are, the less food your body burns. As a result, most people find they cannot get last the 20 pounds off without watching their calories closely and eating only 9 - 10 times their body weight in calories. (i.e. if you weigh 140 lbs you may find you have to eat as little as 1269 to 1400 calories a day to lose, depending on speed of your metabolism and your activity level.)

With that in mind, you can see why, independent of the blood sugar issue, that snack bar with its 240 calories that you eat every day between meals may have serious repercussions for your diet--it is adding 1680 calories a week--over 1/2 pound's worth of calories--besides replacing more nutritious foods like the high fiber, low carb vegetables that are an important part of the diet of long-term successful low carb dieters.


END

[Nancy]

Strawberry ~

Great article! Thanks for sharing.

It is late, Unca is on the road, I’ve had a very full day and I am about to sign off for the night and will be gone tomorrow so will not write much now.

Medifast products are manufactured in an FDA inspected facility and in order to have their mark on our products, every single solitary ingredient must be listed on the label. All ingredient amounts are accurate. No netting of the carb counts on our boxes…what they say, is what you get.

The sweetener we use in the products is Acesulfame potassium.
Acesulfame potassium is safe and suitable for all segments of the population. The FDA, which is the governmental agency responsible for ensuring the safety of all foods, has approved Acesulfame potassium for use in numerous food products on eight separate occasions since 1988. The agency based its decisions on a large body of scientific evidence that demonstrates the safety of the ingredient.
Acesulfame potassium is sold as Sunett and as the tabletop product Sweet One.

I have never been a cheerleader for using sugar free mints. Gum and mints always make me feel hungrier. If it’s your breath that drive ya to mints, brush your teeth and tongue and drink plenty of water. Most sugar-free mints can actually create dragon breath, IMHO.

Again, good article.

We need to eat foods that are properly balanced – we need some carbs, Folks. Carb Free is not the way to go. Our program has us eating foods with the proper ratio of protein-carbs-and fats. We need all three macronutrients. When you follow the plan exactly as it is written for the Lean and Green, you’ll be consuming low GI (Glycemic Index) carbs. Our foods do not twang your glucose levels outta this universe.

If you stick to drinking and eating only the foods that come in the little sealed white packets with the Medifast label on them and a green salad with low fat dressing (or 1 ½ cups of the approved cooked vegetables) and 7 ounces of lean chicken or fish; you’re gonna lose weight faster than you ever dreamed possible and you’re gonna feel good and you’ll look good, too.

Don’t mess with Medifast. It’s a proven product. Take Shape For Life is the proven program that gets you to your optimal weight and helps you to keep it there.

[martha]

Thanks for the article..Very informative.. I am one of the people who gets severe gas problems if I eat 5 or more of any kind of SF candies or mints--so I tend to leave them alone now unless I am starving between meals I hate the cramps ..Martha

[Walks262]

Interesting article, Strawberry. Thanks for posting it. I learned some things. Never really knew what those sugar alcohols were. A simple conclusion: stay away. You either get a spike in blood sugar or gas. Who wants either!

[Marcelle]

Diddo on the thanks here too! That was really interesting!

[Mommy2girls]

Great article! I am definitely one who experiences gas/runs if I eat too much fake sugar. I think the labeling part is soooo interesting! We used to follow the South Beach Diet and bought some of their bars and DH was going to the BR all the time! We finally looked at the contents and the sugar alcohols were really high. So now we stay away from really high fake sugar.

Everything in moderation, EVERYTHING.

[Lisa Renee]

I am glad if it helped anyone. I agree with Nancy, it's so important not to add to Medifast because it is perfectly balanced. SF mints seemed like a good idea for me at the time because of the bad breath I get when I diet... Not such a good idea. I am sticking to what I know works and so far Medifat R O C K S!!! I did notice that in a couple of the bars it has maltitol syrup and glycerine, HOWEVER, Nancy is right about the fact that Medifast seems to be very honest in their labeling. Carbs are carbs and some are ok to have, so don't go overboard I agree Ace-K is probably the safest artificial sweetner on the market in my opinion. That's one of the reasons I went with Medifast and I have had no problems with anything I have tried so far. I only looked for this information because it seems I am very sensitive to changes in blood sugar and so are a lot of other overweight people. If I am reallly unsure of something, I will look up the glycemic index and see how high it is.


Have a great day everyone!

[Jan]

Hi Strawberry,
That was a great article. Thank-you so much for posting it. Now we all know why sugar-free candies cause so much trouble. I've noticed for quite some time now that they make my stomach gurgle. And oh what problems are in store if I eat toooo many.
Now you know why we love Medifast products too. Every single ingredient is listed on the label. Not one is missing so we know exactly what we are getting. I didn't really realize how sneaky some other manufacturers could be with manipulating their labels so as to make it difficult to figure things out. Now we know -- Thanks.
jan

[Nancy]

Strawberry ~

Regarding nutritional analysis

I have a few clients that do not have diabetes and they choose to order the diabetic bars because they want less sugar.

There are two flaves of diabetic bars - chocolate crunch and peanut butter crunch.

The texture is different from the regular line of bars (they are crunchy!) and they taste less sweet.

Diabetic Bars

130 - 140 calories
3.5 – 4.5 grams of total fat
2.5 grams saturated fats
0 grams cholesterol
160 grams sodium
310 – 330 grams potassium
21 – 22 grams carbs
4 grams dietary fiber
1 gram of sugars
10 grams of protein
20 – 70 % daily total vitamins and minerals

The regular bar line

150-170 calories
3.5 – 5 grams total fat
1 – 3 grams of saturated fat
0 grams cholesterol
150-160 grams sodium
280-400 grams potassium
18 – 24 grams carbs
1 - 2 grams dietary fiber
10 - 16 grams of sugars
10 grams of protein
20 – 70 % daily total vitamins and minerals

[aimalasplace]

Someone told me a while ago that sugar free product that have the artificial sweetener actually makes you crave sugar just as you would if you eat sugary food and make you crave more. The sweetener makes your body react the same as if you were eatting sugar. I gave up my tea with splenda because of that. I can't eat the oatmeal cookies cause they cause a sugar craving for me.
I know for me that anytime I eat malitol I have horrible stomach reactions. You could hear my tummy a room away and the gas we won't even go into.
My boss had been eatting a lg amount of sugarfree candy on and off and she would be so sick the next day and this went on for a while. She brought the bad into work on day and I told her it was the candy that was making her sick- she didn't have any problems once she stopped eatting them.

[Lisa Renee]

There are oatmeal cookies? Why don't I know about them??? lol... I went and looked at the oatmeal and didn't see any maltitol or glycerine, so I don't think that's what you meant. We got cookies???

Thanks Nancy for telling me about the diabetic bars... I checked them out and maltitol is the first ingredient followed by sorbitol.. Like I said, some people do really well with these, unfortunitely I don't. Oh well...It's probably better than I don't have bars anyway because they are so tasty and tempting! My husband has now asked me about a bar that he could do for breakfast only--he is not overweight, but has been skipping breakfast because of his hectic schedule. I would say he feels more fit about 10 pounds lighter. He is also lifting weights now but I would consider him a medium build. Any ideas? Are the regular bars ok for people not really dieting? Don't know what I would do without the information you provide here. Thanks!

[Nancy]

re:

There are oatmeal cookies?

Hunny!

You poor thing!

Here ya go, your command is my wish...the oatmeal cookie recipe.

http://www.makemethinner.com/forum/diet-2180.html

All the products are for ALL the people - yup - plain ordinary thin folks can have the bars, shakes, soups, puddin's, etc. fancy fluffy extraordinary folks can have the bars, shakes, soups, and puddin' - it's for us all!

He could use a shake and a packet of Medifast Oatmeal cookies now that you have the recipe for brekkie, if he wanted - it is best to have oatmeal or a shake for breakfast and to have bars for later. The carb and calorie count is higher in the bars than in any of the other products and we prefer you to have a meal or two under your belt before sending a bar down the food chute to prevent spikes in your blood sugar level.