What is the real scoop on Advantage Bars?

[JeanieH]

The other day someone was talking about advantage bars and almost all of your regular ladies knocked eating them--someone said they have hidden carbs---can you please inform me a bit.
I have lost alot and yet been eating just a few bites almost everyday of these so just curious! I would appreciate information thanks

[LoveMontana]

Here is some info and I'll be back with more.
MISLABELED PRODUCTS
(Listed according to the above referenced FDA, Consumer Labs and the
National Consumers League Reports)
ATKINS NUTRITIONAL BARS
Consumer Labs Research - http://www.consumerlab.com/results/nutbars.asp
National Consumer League - http://www.nclnet.org/proteinbarpr.htm
RICHARDSON LABS CARB SOLUTIONS -
FDA Warning Letter - http://www.fda.gov/foi/warning_letters/g1189d.pdf

[LoveMontana]

How to calculate hidden carbs


fat has 9 calories per gram carbs hav 4 protein has 4
Look at the label of whatever product you want to check. Multiply the number of fat grams by 9, the carb grams by 4 and the protein grams by 4. Add these up. The total number you get will. be the Total Calories. Compare this to the number of Total Calories the product in question lists. If there is a big difference (if your number is lower) there are hidden carbs.

Subtract the number of calories you came up with from the number of calories listed on the label and divide by 4 (carbs have 4 calories per gram...remember?) and you come up with the number of hidden carbs in a product.

EXAMPLE:
protein revolution bars
fat 8x9=72
carbs2.5x4=10
protein 22x4=86
total=170
total calories listed on the package=230
230 - 170 = 60
60 divided by 4 = 15
15 hidden carbs plus the 2.5(on the package) = 17.5 carbs

[LoveMontana]

One more...
This was posted by Sherry on another bb and thought it was too
important
not to share.
Hi all:
This was in our local paper (Ft Lauderdale, FL) today. It seems the
nutritional labels are wrong on these products (and who knows how many
more?!)
1st one is reported, 2nd is actual)
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
Many errors found in 'Nutritional Facts' on food labels
By Mitch Lipka
Consumer Writer
Posted September 2 2001
The "Nutritional Facts" panels on food labels that we've come to rely
on
to make healthy eating choices often are wrong. Sometimes the claims on
the packages and reality are a world apart.
Some of the mistakes are so bad that people on sugar-free diets were
eating spoonfuls of sugar without knowing it. People hoping to eat lean
are ingesting fat. And those counting their carbohydrates will have to
redo their math and add a whole lot more to get the right total.
In the past year, three out of four diet products tested at the Florida
Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services laboratory proved to
have erroneous information in their "Nutritional Facts" panels or on
their labels. The Tallahassee-based agency frequently tests for the
accuracy of nutritional labels, but rarely makes the findings public.
Using Florida's public records laws, the Sun-Sentinel obtained the
results of the lab's tests conducted since 1999. An analysis of the
data
showed nearly 1,000 items with inaccurate food labels.
In the past year alone, more than 1 in 10 bakery products and candies
tested in Florida's lab were misbranded. So were one of four dressings
and condiments
Among the products found with erroneous label claims:
Dr. Atkins Chocolate Mocha Bar. The label claims 3.5 grams of
carbohydrates per serving. Tests showed it actually has 19.7 grams of
carbs.
Low Carb World's vanilla clair. The "Nutritional Facts" claim 2 grams
of
fat and 2.8 grams of carbohydrates per serving. The reality: 17 grams
of
fat and 35.5 grams of carbohydrates.
Breads for Life hot dog and hamburger buns. The labeling claims no
sugar. Tests found 3.5 grams of sugar per serving.
Health Valley "fat-free" granola and "Healthy Chips" cookies. Each had
more than 1 gram of fat.
Delray Bakery, where a variety of products are sold with the claim "no
sugar." At least 17 different tests found 2 to 19 grams of sugar per
serving the equivalent of a 1/2-teaspoon to nearly 5 teaspoons of
sugar.
Few national brands are on the list of misbranded products, experts
said, because the big companies are careful to get the information
right
and retain customer trust.
Offenders tend to be specialty and regional products ᗗ many of
them product lines that command top dollar from consumers willing to
pay
more to think they're eating less.
Relying on numbers
Food manufacturers are required by state and federal law to accurately
represent what the products contain. Dieticians tell us to read the
"Nutritional Facts" panels to help us eat healthy.
And we've listened. In the decade since the government first began
developing uniform labels to spell out a food's calories, fat,
cholesterol, carbohydrates and protein, we have come to rely on the
numbers when deciding what to buy and eat.
But little is done to keep food makers honest.
Florida is one of the only states that tests food products to see
whether the contents match the statements on the label. And when the
state finds offenders, it often does no more than send a letter of
complaint. At times, that results in a revised label.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration last surveyed nutritional labels
five years ago. It found inaccuracies in one of every 10 products and
called that an excellent result.
With hundreds of thousands of products on the shelves, that means tens
of thousands of those could be misleading consumers.
Variances allowed
In general, a food company's claims have to be wrong by more than 30
percent to fail tests for nutrition content.
Federal law allows most products a 20 percent variance from the label;
a
product that says it has 200 calories can legally have 240. A cereal
said to contain 10 grams of fiber would be OK even if it really had
eight.
In addition, government food labs will account for a margin of error in
testing of up to 10 percent.
State Sen. Steven Geller, D-Hallandale Beach, has been on a quest for
several months to find out whether low-carbohydrate products are truly
that.
"If you have a discrepancy of 3 grams versus 4 grams, that can be a
variation from one batch to the next," he said. "If you have 2 1/2
grams
versus 25 grams, and they charge a lot more for it, how can they be
accidental?
"I think we're seeing systematic, intentional misbranding."
Geller, who chairs the Agriculture and Consumer Services Committee and
is an attorney, has asked the state lab to test foods in numerous South
Florida stores.
"If you make claims in writing, which are essentially a warranty, and
they are far off from the claims, I think you impute fraud," Geller
said. "I want them to clean up their act. If they don't clean up their
act, I want them gone."
Joanne Brown, bureau chief of the state food lab, said she has stopped
being surprised by what she finds.
"Since we've been doing some of these on and off for the last two
years,
some of their claims are just ridiculous," she said. "As far as the
carbs and some of the claims as far as no sugar, when you taste what
they taste like, they can't be."
Companies are not required to test the food. Sometimes they do.
Sometimes they use estimates. Sometimes the numbers seem to come out of
someone's imagination.
"The average consumer really has no concept that a particular food
doesn't have to undergo any testing," said University of Florida food
science professor Elaine Turner. "You, as a food manufacturer, don't
have to tell the FDA that you're going to create a new food. You just
do
it."
Dieticians, food watchdogs and industry observers are concerned that
knowledge of widespread errors on the labels will undermine consumer
confidence.
"It's absolutely essential that those labels be accurate," said Bonnie
Liebman, director of nutrition at the Center for Science in the Public
Interest.
"Once consumers start to doubt the accuracy of the calories, the fat,
the sodium, they all lose value, because we don't know which ones are
right and which ones are wrong."
Deceit denied
Nutritional information is often incorrect on products geared to those
to whom it matters most: the health-conscious.
Adherents of the Dr. Atkins low-carbohydrate diet who purchased a
"Low-Carb Food Bar" expecting to get 2 grams of carbohydrates really
were consuming 18 grams, the lab tests showed an inaccuracy of 810
percent.
Richard Hirsch, senior vice president of Atkins Nutritionals Inc., said
the company has been tussling with the FDA for more than a year over
the
carbohydrate count on nutrition labels. At issue is the company's
practice of understating the carbohydrate count, adding an asterisk
denoting that the deducted carbohydrates are not absorbed by the body
and therefore shouldn't be counted in the Atkins plan.
The law, however, doesn't permit such subtractions or the inclusion of
asterisks. Federal law also prohibits the claim of "low carbohydrate"
food because since there is no legal definition.
"This is not a question of us trying to do anything deceitful," Hirsch
said. "This is an Atkins product for an Atkins consumer."
The company has changed its labels to eliminate the words "low carb,"
but still has to address the asterisks. Hirsch said the company will
reformulate some of its products and remake its labels to comply with
federal law sometime in 2002.
Attorneys for the company have been writing to Florida officials since
in December 2000 with promises that such changes were in the works.
Carbolites Foods Inc. of Evansville, Ind., had three products
misbranded
by the state lab this year and has been fighting the FDA over
carbohydrate labeling. Carbolites' vanilla mousse mix, which claimed 2
grams of carbohydrates, measured 8 grams in state testing. The product
also claimed no sugar, but had 4.2 grams of sugar per serving.
"We're very careful with how we label," said Wade Ficklin, vice
president of sales and marketing. "We stand by our labeling and where
our asterisks are."
Low Carb World and C.K. Distributors, run by Hadas Keynan from North
Miami Beach, had six products flunk in testing this year. Tests found
brownies that had eight times more carbohydrates than claimed and
crackers with more than triple the claims.
Keynan maintains that everything's OK now and that new state tests
prove
that. But Brown, head of the state lab, said a follow-up round of tests
is not complete.
Ground zero
Keynan blamed the manufacturer for a high-fat clair that was supposed
to
be low-fat. "What the mistake was, I have no idea."
When pressed to name the manufacturer, Keynan said it wasn't one but a
combination of manufacturers. "They told us what we needed to correct
and we did," she said. "I know that the problem was corrected.
Everything was taken care of."
Hirsch said South Florida is known in his business as both ground zero
for sales and frauds.
"South Florida is the hotbed of the low-carb world," the Atkins
executive said. "Everybody and their brother is going to their garage
and making what they claim to be low-carb products.
"We wish we could come down with an army of lawyers and clean up what's
going on in Florida. There's a lot of people offering products that
don't match up to reality."
Mitch Lipka can be reached at mlipka@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6653.

ALSO.....
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
Sun-Sentinel
Posted September 2, 2001
PRODUCT CLAIMS VS. REALITY
Claim per serving
Atkins Bake Mix
3 grams of carbohydrates
7.86 grams
Cheeters Low Carb Keto Bar
4 grams of carbohydrates
27.8 grams
Darrel Lea Zero Carb Chocolate Chips
0 grams of carbohydrates
14.2 grams
Biochem Ultimate LO Carb 2 Bars
3 grams of carbohydrates
31.1 grams
Low Carb World Vanilla Cookies
1 gram of carbohydrates
2 grams of fat
8.3 grams
13.3 grams
Delray Bakery
Sugar Free Chocolate Roll
Sugar Free Chocolate Brownie
Sugar Free Chocolate Muffin
Sugar Free Fruit Strip
0 grams of sugar
0 grams of sugar
0 grams of sugar
0 grams of sugar
16.9 grams
11.8 grams
7.4 grams
8.6 grams
Michael Raymond Desserts
Atkins Style Creamy Cheesecake
2.5 grams of carbohydrates
7.6 grams
Butterfly Bakery Raisin Bran Muffin
11 grams of carbohydrates
3.5 grams of fat
0.5 of sugar
24.9 grams
6.5 grams
2.4 grams
Cookie Lovers Honey Grahams
1 gram of fat
2.8 grams
Louis Rich smoked ham
1.5 grams of fat
3.63 grams
Health Valley Healthy Scones
0 grams of fat
1.29 grams
D-Liteful Desserts Coconut Macaroons
1 gram of carbohydrates
2 grams of fat
4.5 grams
3.73 grams
A&E Bakery Apricot Bobka
0 grams of sugar
3.2 grams
Tom's Foods Hot Bean Dip
0 grams of fat
1.6 grams
Source: Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Food & Residue
Laboratories, staff research

[CarolynF]

Wow...no wonder people are having such a difficult time...grrrr..
makes you made, doesn't it???

[LoveMontana]

Yes, it sure does. LOL Now do you want to know about soy?

[Kathy4HIM]

I just want to add that I have eaten these bars VERY occasionally with absolutely no problems at all. For a diabetic they are really a fairly good choice to carry along in care of "need". I just don't ever mention it here because nobody here approves of ever touching them. LOL ***ducking***

Kathy

[LoveMontana]

No need to duck Kathy. If you have no blood glucose spike and no problem losing weight, go for it. I do know that Dr. Atkins, at a lecture several years ago, admitted a problem with them. He said to cut them into 4 pieces and eat only one small piece per day after induction.
Just keep a real close eye on your thyroid. Mine got enlarged several years ago when I was using soy. Endo told me to STOP using it at once.
Ya gotta do what's best for you dear. Some people have no problem with them.

[JeanieH]

Thanks for all the comments! I see where people are getting the tude with the bars then

What didn't make sence to me is how I have almost lost 50 pounds and have eaten a few bites each day of the bars--I cut them into 14 pieces though and only eat 2-5 bites a day---for now I won't remove them from my diet because I am still losing but if a stall comes my way they will be the first thing I eliminate.

Thanks again for the info
saving it

[LadyV]

LoveMontana You should save that and post it periodically in the lobby for the newbies when they start asking about those bars! Great info!!! Maybe Dottie would sticky it? Thanks so much for posting this!

[LoveMontana]

Thanks Cloud,
I have posted it there several times and most people ignore it or just complain about nothing being wrong with something Dr. Atkins sells.

[LadyV]

Oh....pooooooooo! It's really their loss though cause that is really helpful information to have at hand!!

[LoveMontana]

Yeah, it's their loss or lack of loss. I just won't argue with them. So be it.