boring diet page, formerly known as the lo carblog.

Okay, I guess I'm finally ready to post my Master Blend. Use this to substitute for the sugar in any ice cream recipe, and it will taste sweet without an aftertaste and the texture will be darn good.

I realize the irony of posting this right after the last screed against sugar alcohols, but, well, they're there for a reason and there's not too much of any of them and sorry.

For every cup or so of sugar, use:

2 teaspoons Maltitol

1/4 cup Erythritol

10 drops Sweetzfree liquid Splenda (you could substitute 1/2 cup powdered Splenda, but that would add 12 carbs to the recipe)

1 tablespoon Lecithin

1 tablespoon Glycerin

and a few shakes, maybe 1/4 teaspoon, of Xanthan gum.

Chances are, you might be missing one or more of these from your kitchen cabinet, but the links can be used to buy them all online, or at least to let you know what they look like. Most of these ingredients can be found in any well-stocked health food store, so look there first. I've only bought the first three from the sites linked above for them*, so caveat emptor. The other sites are probably just fine, but who knows.

Stuff like the xanthan gum lasts forever, and you don't use very much of any of the ingredients, so it's a big initial investment but it'll be a while before you need to restock.

If you tweak the blend for the better, please let me know! We deserve the best ice cream we can make!

*actually, I bought the Maltitol at the fabulous brick-and-mortar Legal Foods store on 8th and Willow in Hoboken, NJ. But I bet their web orders are fine.
binki 6:55 PM |

Most people do subtract the fiber grams, and that's easy and logical and allows you to eat very well. If you stick to natural foods, like you should, this is the end of the discussion. Carbs - fiber = net carbs, and there you are.

It only gets complicated when you get into all the new Frankenfoods out there now. The low-carb boom has brought us a bazillion ways to eat new junk food, which means not changing the bad habits, just substituting different foods—I'm not so sure I'd call that progress. If you really want to do this thing right, skip them altogether and you'll lose weight the fastest and feel great.

That said, there are plane rides, there are road trips, there are times when your only choices are peanuts and cracker jacks. So you buy an Atkins bar and wonder, do I count the big red 2 on the front of the package or the number I've derived mathematically from the actual information on the back? Well... this is where those schools of thought come in. It depends on a lot of things. Those mysterious disappearing grams tend to be glycerin or one or more polyols, AKA sugar alcohols. These are things that tend to end in "itol" like mannitol, lactitol, maltitol, and the erythritol I've written about before. They have a different impact on the insulin your body releases than sugar does. Theoretically, they raise it less than sugar, so the FDA considers them "low impact" and allows manufacturers not to count them when they come up with the great big number for the front of the package.

Too good to be true? Yepperz. For starters, they affect people differently. The internet is full of posts by diabetics reporting varying levels of insulin spikes after eating different products. Some people can eat them with no gastrointestinal distress at all. For these people, the polyols ARE being absorbed, just like sugar or any other carb, and it's wise to count them in this case. For most people, the polyols cause a delightful variety of things to happen, from rumbling to farting to staggering into the bathroom, wondering which way to approach the toilet and anguished longing for death's sweet release. Seriously, don't eat a whole bag of those candies. No, seriously.

In any case, assuming they run through you, you can theoretically deduct those carbs. Or can you? Here's a short discussion thread where the third poster has come up with some numbers to use. Note the difference between values for Erythritol and Maltitol syrup. Interestingly, to me, the ones which wreak the least havoc digestively are listed at the top and have the lowest value.

Which throws the whole "if it doesn't wreck you, you have to count it" thing out the window. Hm. I have to think about that. I don't understand why that is. If there are any food scientists out there who can explain it, please do.

My new theory, formulated just for this post, is that they do all affect you, but people don't stall on the evil ones like Maltitol because it gives you the trots.

Sorry, I know I just overcomplicated the crap out of this. Bottom line: the consensus I keep finding is that you should avoid them, or at the very least count them fully if you do eat them. Here and here and here are some very good articles making the case for counting them, and I think they're right. Besides, if you think of that Atkins bar as 11g instead of 2, you'll be less tempted to eat five of them a day, and that's a good thing.
binki 9:53 AM |

I believe I've hit the magic combination to make good sugarfree and scoopable ice cream! I've got to try it with a batch of plain vanilla or chocolate, something without fruit in there, and then I'll post the results. Well, actually, I'll eat the results, but I'll tell you about it.
binki 11:59 PM |

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Diet stuff (specifically low-carb, Atkins-type stuff) will be on this weblog from now on, so as not to clutter the regular blog with its boringness. As I learn about new low-carb stuff I'll post it to this blog, so check in from time to time if you care to. If you got here directly from a search result and want to read about anything other than low-carb living, here's how you get to the rest of my site!

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Useful links:
Atkins All the Way boards
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Low Carb Transformation boards
Low Carb Eating boards
First Step Tracker
USDA nutritional info
Glycemic Index
Liquid Splenda!
Honeyville Grain
CountCarbs.com
A La Carb
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