"Ignoramus30418" wrote in message
...
I find it rather amusing. This company used to sell crappy products
using a bogus calculation (of net carbs). Now it is, apparently, going
to sell same trash products, using just as bogus calculation (glycemic
index, according to the article).

Atkins Nutritionals had a very short life in the UK and for good reason.
Back in 2002, after seeing the 'Diet Revolution' book everywhere, I was
tempted to give it a try. After losing what seemed like a huge amount of
weight during the first two induction weeks, I got excited at the prospect
of losing weight fast & still be able to eat pancakes, flour tortillas,
bread, etc. as sold by this company. The Atkins website had a whole lot of
'low carb' versions of 'normal' foods but none of those things were
available in the UK at the time. The products were overpriced to start with
& after adding international shipping their cost skyrocketted but one wishes
to try new things...

When the products that have cost their own weight in gold arrived, they
turned out to be highly disappointing. Whether you could eat them and still
lose (I mean weight, I did lose a lot of pounds of the other kind) wasn't
even an issue, most of the stuff was inedible anyway. The 'maple syrup' was
as thin as water, I could have done better with artificial flavouring, water
& edulcorant (which is probably all there was in it). The bars tasted awful
& had 240 cals each. The labels were full of 'hocus pocus' calculations
regarding what was carbs & what was not & the figures quoted for F/C/P
didn't add up to the number of calories.

My guess is that the experts are wrong in guessing that this change is
happening due to changing consumer dieting preferences towards
different types of diets. I think that the real reason for this switch
is that the net carb fraud became too notorious. Too few people
believe in "net carbs", and this fraud will probably soon be banned by
the government food agencies. Hence the preventive action by "Atkins
nutritionals".

It must be rather difficult to make something that looks, feels, and tastes
like a carb but has no carbs at all. A lot of the Atkins stuff is faked
using glycerine & sugar alcohols which can cause digestive problems.

Glycemic index calculation is even more nebulous than net carbs, and
is very easy to fake and lie about without the fear of being
successfully sued. Unlike carb counts, which are at least based on
objective lab tests, "glycemic index" is based on "blood sugar
response of human subjects". That response is variable and depends on
the person. So, al they have to do to fudge the numbers is find the
human subjects with the least response.

For a pdf of a good critique of Glycemic index, check out

http://igor.chudov.com/tmp/gi.pdf

Sounds too subjective to be measurable, let alone legally regulate the
claims...