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What are net carbs?

smallsfgirl
smallsfgirl Posts: 14
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I just ate this Atkins Peanut Butter Cups. It has 18g Carbs, 11g Sugar Alcohol, 5g Dietary Fiber, and 2g Net Carbs. When I search the database for this item, I can add it as 2 Carbs or 18 Carbs. Not sure what to do. Can anyone explain? TY :)

Replies

  • EricCowperthwaite
    EricCowperthwaite Posts: 450
    Net carbs is total carbs minus fiber. Generally, if you are on a diet like Atkins, or following Taubes advice, you should not eat a food portion that has more than 5 grams of NET carbs in it. The body doesn't metabolize fiber into glucose like it does with other types of carbs, so we don't need to count fiber as part of our carb intake. Some diets also allow you to subtract sugar alcohols.Atkins is an example of that. Others, like Taubes, don't.
  • smallsfgirl
    smallsfgirl Posts: 14
    Yeah, I was wondering about Sugar Alcohol. Weird that Atkins says ok, but Taubes says no. I feel like Taubes would understand that better for some reason. Those peanut butter cups were way too good to be an Ok food :) Thanks Eric.
  • Linda860
    Linda860 Posts: 29 Member
    Atkins considers net carbs to be total carbs minus fiber minus sugar alcohols -- in the case of your PB cups, that would be 2. The controversy is that some people see their blood sugar spike when they consume sugar alcohols, so they believe those grams should be counted. Up to you -- I don't count them. You will see that there are numerous entries of a lot of these foods in the database. Not all of them are accurate (example: some show total carbs as less than the fiber carbs. This is obviously wrong, as fiber is carbs). If you can't find an accurate entry, you can always enter it as a new food and plug in the correct values yourself. If you do, you would reduce the total carbs amount by the sugar alcohol grams (if you choose to do that), and leave the fiber the same.
  • smallsfgirl
    smallsfgirl Posts: 14
    Thank you Linda! Good to know that some people see blood sugar spike with the sugar alcohol.
  • Bill_from_Philly
    Bill_from_Philly Posts: 83
    Yeah, I was wondering about Sugar Alcohol. Weird that Atkins says ok, but Taubes says no. I feel like Taubes would understand that better for some reason. Those peanut butter cups were way too good to be an Ok food :) Thanks Eric.
    I think you need to really look at which sugar alcohols and their effect on you to decide if you should count them or not. for me malitol plays havoc with my digestive system and can knock me out of ketosis but some of the others don't have any effect at all. Listen to your body it'll tell you.

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