Low-Carb Diet Rip-offs

The overweight and obese have always provided a very lucrative and ready market for food companies to exploit with expensive, nutrient-poor, highly-processed, slimming 'foods' and diet products. Some of these, the liquid powders you made into a drink, were made largely from skim milk powder, with added chemicals and artificial flavours. The ingredients were very cheap for the manufacturers to buy (skim milk powder is almost given away), but were very expensive for the dieter to buy. Others included inert fillers which contained no food at all.

I had hoped that when the new low-carb way of eating caught on, these rip-off merchants would be unable to sell their products and go into liquidation.

How naïve I was!

The current low-carb 'fad' has allowed the food companies to widen their net to ensnare even more people with even more rip-offs, which are even more expensive. Here are some examples on sale to the 'low-carb diet' market (I have written comments in blue below each one):

Atkins Advantage Shake Vanilla flavour

COMMENTS

'Best served chilled or over ice', it says on the packet. I'll say it is, then you might lose the taste. It's a bit like sweet custard until it has gone down, then it leaves a sort of medicinal taste in the mouth.

If it weren't for the soybean oil, it might be healthier than a 'healthy' low-fat shake but, then, that isn't saying much.

Atkins Morning Shine (Chocolate Chip Crisp) 37g

COMMENTS

This is a breakfast bar. Breakfast needs to give you at least one third of the energy you need for the day. So you must think in terms of between 600 and 1,000 calories for breakfast.

There is no nutritional information on this bar – it is too small. But, according to information on the Atkins website, it will contain about 137 calories. Thus you will need five of them at least and, as they cost about £1.00 each even with a discount, this means a very expensive breakfast!

Compare this with four large eggs scrambled in butter. They will cost around 70p (more than 80% less), contain all the nutrients in the Atkins bars – and more besides – and be more natural and healthier.

By the way, all the Atkins products seem to contain soy. This is not healthy. See No Joy with Soy and Soy Online Service

Carbolite Chocolate Flavour Crisp Wafer

COMMENTS

There is slightly more real food in this than in the Atkins products, so it might just be slightly healthier to eat. BUT look at the price! Cost £1.09 per 26g bar – that's a massive £41.92 per kilo (£19.05 per lb)! You really would have to be preetty desperate (or stupid) to pay this, wouldn't you?

Again, you would need to eat a heck of a lot for a meal – to get near 600 calories would cost £6.81

But that isn't the idea, is it? These aren't food, they are a treat. In which case, why not buy Continental dark chocolate. At about £1.50 for 200 grams, this is not only much better value – it's a heck of a lot healthier as well! Too much carb? No: relax and don't get all up tight about carbs. This should be a low-carb diet, not a NO-carb diet. You can have treats – without getting ripped off.

But if what you need is a snack, cheese (of which there are many different varieties, textures and tastes) is even healthier – as well as far better value.

Carbolite also do another bar which is called a Milk Chocolate Flavour Bar. At 28g it is the same price as the one above. Despite its name, if you look at the ingredients you will find that it contains no milk chocolate!

These are just a few examples of the ripoffs out there. Of course, other manufacturers are also climbing onto the bandwagon as fast as they can to rip off the overweight while the trend lasts.

The only way to combat this exploitation is not to succumb to it. EAT REAL FOOD! Real food might take a little longer to prepare but, in health terms and in money terms, it really is worth the little bit of effort. For example, to scramble four eggs for breakfast takes about 5 minutes – and compared to the Atkins breakfast bars, saves you over £4.00. That's an hourly rate of more than £50.00. Can you really afford not to do the little work needed to scramble eggs, if that is the pay rate?

Last updated 9 May 2004