Atkins endulge bars.... Carbs confusion

finaltry2016

Hi I started low carb diet 5 days ago and so far it's going ok. But last night I had a real bad chocolate craving. I was at target and was very excited to see Atkins bars & candies there.

Thinking that I might throw down my diet completely by eating anything else...I was very happy to buy these bars as an alternative. I read the boxes a X there is so much variety with 1,2 or 3 net card options. I bought some boxes, came home & ate one bar and one bag of chocolate candies (total of 3 net carbs as per the box) for my dinner. But MFP notes it as 36 g carb.

nvmomketo

I would go with the nutritional info on the box or go to the Atkins site. I have no idea what is correct, I tend to skip the Atkins brand.

ETA Confusion could come from net vs total carbs. Total carbs are all the carbs in the product. Net carbs are total carbs minus fibre.

yarwell

Most of the carbs in these things are partly digestible polydextrose, sugar alcohols and the like. Hence Atkins deduct them to get to the net carb claim on the front.

Personally I find they behave as if about half the carbs are digestible in terms of blood glucose effect.

SueInAz

The difference is NET carbs vs. TOTAL carbs. MFP doesn't have a field for sugar alcohols so they're included in that figure. Sugar alcohols and fiber don't impact blood sugar so Atkins subtracts them out and shows you the Net Carbs on the front of the box. If you look at the nutrition label and do the math you should find it equals the same.

What you're seeing in MFP is the total carbs which includes the sugar alcohols. I usually create an entry for the food item and denote it as (minus sugar alcohols) and subtract them out of the total carb field. Then I can just subtract the Fiber field to figure out net carbs in my daily intake.