La Tiara Taco Shells & Netrition

Hi Michele,
On Wed, 22 Oct 2003 13:39:42 GMT, you held up the following for
inspection:

I have spoken with the manufacturer and I will be contacting Netrition
as well after reading this post.

The manufacturer has just recently had his products retested (due to
new labeling laws, etc) at independent, FDA approved laboratories and
all three labs, along with the FDA have found the labeling to be
correct.

That's great! All you have to do is post the nutritional analysis' you
got from the manufacturer from those labs in ASDLC to correct the
misconception. Netrition should also be willing to retract their
statement in the face of three separate analysis'. Make sure you post
the contact info for the labs too - you know how mistrustful lowcarbers
have learned to be. :-)

I have no idea where Netrition is getting their information, but it is
faulty and I will be taking that up with them, suggesting they either
provide proof of their potentially slanderous and liable statments or
retract their comments.

As I said above if three separate labs will attest that the La Tiara
taco shells are lowcarb and have numbers to back it, then Netrition will
have no choice but to retract it.

We have literally hundreds of satisfied customers that attest to the
fact that not only are these shells delicious, they are, indeed low
carb. How else would they be able to maintain their OWL or even stay
in Ketosis?

Well, you know that ASDLCers are a potentially *huge* new market, and
that the lurkers are watching too. I'll be waiting for those lab
analysis' myself. I'd be interested in them if the numbers are right.
:-)

Take care,
Carmen

Hi Michele,
On Wed, 22 Oct 2003 15:04:00 GMT, you held up the following for
inspection:

The manufacturer has "posted" the nutritional information on his
packaging as is required by the FDA. No more proof is needed.

I must respectfully disagree, but your statement makes it clear that you
either have never seen or will not post the lab analysis'. If you have
not seen them, then I must submit that blindly taking the word of a
company with a financial interest in the answer isn't the wisest way to
go.

There is no hocus pocus going on there. These are not your average
thick, cardboard-like taco shells. If you have ever tried the shells,
then you would notice they are smaller and much thinner than any other
shell on the market. Upon re-reading the original post from Netrition,
notice they said "compare the same size". I would imagine that if
other leading brands would choose to do so, they may be able to
approach a similar carb count per serving after removing fillers that
you normally find in widely manufacturered corn products. (our
ingredient list is short and sweet) However, La Tiara is the only one
doing that at this time. Think about it, half as much ingredient =
half as much carbs.

If that is the case, then the La Tiara taco shells are just another
example of the "play with the serving size to make the product appear
low carb" game. They're considerably more expensive than the average
taco shell in the grocary store. Unfortunately in the 4 plus years I've
been low carbing I've seen it time and again. Applesauce, ketchup - you
name it.

1) Laboratories confirmed the labeling
This is still open for scrutiny. No proof has been forthcoming.

2) The FDA approved the labeling
Based upon the word of the manufacturer, which has not been proven.

3) Low carb dieters across the country are eating these and still
losing weight
If they are, then they may well have a higher carb tolerance then they
thought.

I really can't see what the problem is. Eat them or don't eat them.
It's really up to the individual to make that choice. What's amazing
to me is that the people complaining about these are folks who have
not even TRIED or SEEN the shells. Read my feedback. Now imagine all
those rave reviews plus millions who have eaten them over the past 40
years, before we made them so widely available on the web and that's
how many low carbers would stand up to tell anyone that these are not
only low carb but delicious.

The problem is that there are newbies starting low carb every day, and
if they eat these things thinking they only have one carb each and the
truth is that they contain more than that then they could easily stall
and conclude that "low carb doesn't work".
Touting a past history of sales for the taco shells is a specious
argument. It's only recently that they've been sold as "low carb". I
think it's quite safe to say that there are *not* millions of low
carbers who would stand up for them. Let's not get carried away.
My personal interest in this matter is truth. The labels do not add up.
I pointed that out before. A lab analysis will show what the true
numbers are. When La Tortilla first started selling their "low carb"
tortillas their labels didn't smell right. A low carber paid $600 to
have his own choice of lab run tests on them. Their labels *were*
wrong, and when confronted with the results La tortilla reformulated
them to *be* low carb. Those test results are on his website. That's
why low carbers know they can be trusted.

I understand you have a financial stake in the reputation of the La
Tiara taco shells - you've built a business based on them being low
carb, and if they aren't then you've got a real problem. Were I in your
shoes I don't know how hard I'd push for the truth. Thankfully I'm not
in that position, and will continue to attempt to get to the bottom of
it. Netrition is a highly respected company, and they look out for
their customers. They started figuring out the "unaccounted for"
calories in low carb bars *before* the FDA got involved and including
them in the Nutrition Facts that they post for every product. That's
why when *they* said something was wrong I listened. They stood to make
money off the product and turned down the opportunity for the good of
their customer base. They did the same thing with Walden Farms - for
the same reason.

You have been very gracious. I would appreciate you passing this
information along as you think would be helpful.

I have, and I wish you the best of luck.

Take care,
Carmen

Somehow I am not getting the original posts you have replied to. I have been
wondering about these taco shells myself as I have looked at many labels in
the stores of other taco shells and they are not all *filler-ed* up
products. They show serving sizes average of ..well I think one I saw today
was around 38 grams, which was 3 shells. I recall estimating the carb count
at about 6 or 7 per shell after taking out the couple of fiber grams. The
ingredients of these are also nothing but ground corn water lime and some
oils or shortening. So you're looking at appx 13 grams per shell at appx 6
or 7 grams carb per shell. I see nothing on the one web site I found that
sells La Tiara shells as to the weight of each shell. However the whole box
of 18 shells is only 4.2 OUNCES. A box of 18 Ortega shells is 8.7 ounces. So
that should tell you plenty. I would assume that there's been some major
manipulation going on especially as the box of La Tiara does NOT inform you
of the weight of each serving.. that is very misleading.

Teeb


"Carmen " wrote in message
...

Hi Michele,
On Wed, 22 Oct 2003 15:04:00 GMT, you held up the following for
inspection:

The manufacturer has "posted" the nutritional information on his
packaging as is required by the FDA. No more proof is needed.

I must respectfully disagree, but your statement makes it clear that you
either have never seen or will not post the lab analysis'. If you have
not seen them, then I must submit that blindly taking the word of a
company with a financial interest in the answer isn't the wisest way to
go.

There is no hocus pocus going on there. These are not your average
thick, cardboard-like taco shells. If you have ever tried the shells,
then you would notice they are smaller and much thinner than any other
shell on the market. Upon re-reading the original post from Netrition,
notice they said "compare the same size". I would imagine that if
other leading brands would choose to do so, they may be able to
approach a similar carb count per serving after removing fillers that
you normally find in widely manufacturered corn products. (our
ingredient list is short and sweet) However, La Tiara is the only one
doing that at this time. Think about it, half as much ingredient =
half as much carbs.

If that is the case, then the La Tiara taco shells are just another
example of the "play with the serving size to make the product appear
low carb" game. They're considerably more expensive than the average
taco shell in the grocary store. Unfortunately in the 4 plus years I've
been low carbing I've seen it time and again. Applesauce, ketchup - you
name it.

1) Laboratories confirmed the labeling
This is still open for scrutiny. No proof has been forthcoming.

2) The FDA approved the labeling
Based upon the word of the manufacturer, which has not been proven.

3) Low carb dieters across the country are eating these and still
losing weight
If they are, then they may well have a higher carb tolerance then they
thought.

I really can't see what the problem is. Eat them or don't eat them.
It's really up to the individual to make that choice. What's amazing
to me is that the people complaining about these are folks who have
not even TRIED or SEEN the shells. Read my feedback. Now imagine all
those rave reviews plus millions who have eaten them over the past 40
years, before we made them so widely available on the web and that's
how many low carbers would stand up to tell anyone that these are not
only low carb but delicious.

The problem is that there are newbies starting low carb every day, and
if they eat these things thinking they only have one carb each and the
truth is that they contain more than that then they could easily stall
and conclude that "low carb doesn't work".
Touting a past history of sales for the taco shells is a specious
argument. It's only recently that they've been sold as "low carb". I
think it's quite safe to say that there are *not* millions of low
carbers who would stand up for them. Let's not get carried away.
My personal interest in this matter is truth. The labels do not add up.
I pointed that out before. A lab analysis will show what the true
numbers are. When La Tortilla first started selling their "low carb"
tortillas their labels didn't smell right. A low carber paid $600 to
have his own choice of lab run tests on them. Their labels *were*
wrong, and when confronted with the results La tortilla reformulated
them to *be* low carb. Those test results are on his website. That's
why low carbers know they can be trusted.

I understand you have a financial stake in the reputation of the La
Tiara taco shells - you've built a business based on them being low
carb, and if they aren't then you've got a real problem. Were I in your
shoes I don't know how hard I'd push for the truth. Thankfully I'm not
in that position, and will continue to attempt to get to the bottom of
it. Netrition is a highly respected company, and they look out for
their customers. They started figuring out the "unaccounted for"
calories in low carb bars *before* the FDA got involved and including
them in the Nutrition Facts that they post for every product. That's
why when *they* said something was wrong I listened. They stood to make
money off the product and turned down the opportunity for the good of
their customer base. They did the same thing with Walden Farms - for
the same reason.

You have been very gracious. I would appreciate you passing this
information along as you think would be helpful.

I have, and I wish you the best of luck.

Take care,
Carmen