Low Carb Freedom

Ruby Tuesday's Getting Rid of Some Low Carb?

I read the Washington Post article about the disconnect between what people say they want to eat versus what they actually eat.

Restaurants find healthy foods flop

Chains discover such fare isn't really what diners want

The national restaurant chain Ruby Tuesday added a low-fat Blueberry D'Lite yogurt parfait to its menu more than a year ago to capitalize on the apparent growing appetite among consumers for healthful fare.

The parfait joined more than 40 better-for-you offerings, along with listings of calorie and fat contents for everything on the menu. French fry portions were trimmed. Heavy advertising touted the chain's Smart Eating program.

But diners didn't bite. So Ruby Tuesday has eliminated the Blueberry D'Lite, along with several other healthful dishes ditched after a lengthy period of slumping sales at the chain. Calorie and fat information was dropped except on the healthful items that survived and were moved to the back of the menu.

Now the chain is aggressively promoting its biggest burgers...

Notice the big headline.

I immediately became worried about the low carb Ruby Tuesday fare and went and checked their menu. Under Ruby Tuesday Smart Eating there was still item after item of good low carb fare:

Calories / Fat gm / Net Carb gm / Fiber gm

Steaks, Seafood & Chicken

Entrées served with choice of two sides. Nutrition information does not include side items.

Smart Eating^SM Petite Sirloin*

A smaller version of our irresistible top sirloin.   222/8/1/0

Smart Eating^SM Top Sirloin*

A seasoned sirloin steak.   285/11/1/0

Smart Eating^SM Ribeye*

Our juicy ribeye cooked just the way you like it.   635/44/4/0

Smart Eating^SM Grilled Chicken

Peppercorn-seasoned and grilled.   209/5/0/0

Smart Eating^SM Creole Catch

Broiled seasoned tilapia.   312/16/0/0

Smart Eating^SM Peppercorn Salmon

A peppercorn-seasoned fillet.   287/15/0/0

Smart Eating^SM New Orleans Seafood^™

Broiled seasoned tilapia and shrimp topped with creamy Alfredo sauce.   507/31/4/0

Smart Eating^SM Church Street Chicken^™

Grilled chicken with sautéed mushrooms, crisp bacon and melted Swiss cheese.   523/32/0/2

Side Items & Sauces

Plain Baked Potato 296/2/49/11

Add Ruby's salsa or light ranch dressing.

Salsa 10/0/3/0

Light Ranch Dressing 55/5/1/0

Thai Peanut Sauce 66/3/8/0

Bleu Cheese Dressing 177/19/1/0

Fresh Steamed Broccoli 129/8/5/3

Sugar Snap Peas 82/0/10/4

Sautéed Mushrooms 276/27/0/4

Creamy Mashed Cauliflower 166/11/9/6

Side Caesar Salad 120/10/4/1

Brown Rice Pilaf

Topped with cheese and tomatoes.   223/7/34/2

Dessert

Low-Carb Cheesecake

Our creamy cheesecake with a crunchy nut crust is carb-friendly and delicious.   400/32/1/5

Just ditch the baked potato and the rice pilaf and you can have a field day! And I didn't even excerpt the whole menu!

I would love to try the New Orleans Seafood! (And I'm surprised that the author of the article didn't dispute their "Smart Eating" designation with low carb items on the menu... but that is another article.) And on low carb, you can certainly eat the big burgers they are advertising -- just without the bun.

I have an email into their Marketing dept. to try and find out what items were actually discontinued. I'll let you know what they tell me.

Walden Farms No Carbs Grape Fruit Spread

It is with a heavy heart that I write this review. I purchased this fruit spread at my local Stop & Shop for $2.99 a jar a few months back. (I don't think they have it now.)

I was excited.

No carbs, sugar free, calorie free.

Verdict? It was inedible in my opinion. And I wasn't alone. My son refused to eat his peanut butter and jelly when I made it with this product. The consistency was.... not like jelly and not like vaseline, more like fat globules that roll around.

Both of us love the Keto jelly, but Keto has gone out of business, although the Keto jelly is still available at netrition for who knows how long.

One version of Pollaner All Fruit is sweetened with Splenda, and it is on my Everyday Low Carb Shopping List. It is available at some grocery chains like Stop & Shop. I don't eat the Smucker's because it is sweetened with aspartame.

Interesting ingredient list below....

	Walden Farms No Carbs Grape Fruit Spread
Serving Size	1 Tbsp (15g)
Calories	0
Total Fat	0g
Saturated Fat	0g
Cholesterol	0mg
Sodium	0mg
Total Carbohydrates	0g
Dietary Fiber	0g
Sugar	0g
Protein	0g
Ingredients*	Triple Filtered Purified Water Grape Flavor, Natural Flavor, Sucralose (Splenda brand), Citric Acid, Cellulose Gel, Xantham Gum, and Sodium Benzoate * Contains trace calories (ed: means that the calories are less than what has to be displayed on the label for the serving size.)

The Best Low Carb Pizza I Ever Tasted -- and it is discontinued: Red Baron Carbworks

If anyone finds these in a remainder freezer somewhere, snatch them up for the taste, and let others know where you found them. I found them in my local Market Basket a few months back and I haven't seen them since. There is also no mention of them on the Red Baron website now.

When Low Carb comes back, it would be great if the food manufacturer's took this product as a template and then improved on it in terms of nutrition, not necessarily on taste. You would have never known that this was a low carb pizza. It beat the new South Beach pizza by a mile. The French Bread version, which I tried, was just as big as the Stouffer's French Bread Pizzas. With 13 grams of net carbs, it was worth a splurge once in a while.

	Red Baron Carbworks Pizza
Serving Size	1 pizza (164g)
Calories	350
Total Fat	18g
Saturated Fat	7g
Cholesterol	30mg
Sodium	1040mg
Total Carbohydrates	27g
Dietary Fiber	14g
Sugar	3g
Protein	27g
Ingredients	Toppings: Sauce: Water, Tomato Paste, Margarine (Soybean Oil, Partially Hurdogentated Soybean Oil, Water, Salt, Vegetable Mono and Diglycerides, Vegetable Lecithin, Natural Flavors, Beta Carotene, Vitamin A Palmtate Added), Seasoning (Paprika, Granulated Onion and Garlic, Spices, Citric Acid), Soybean Oil, Contians 2 percent or less of salt, Xantham gum, Guar Gum, Oligofructose, Fructose, Acesulfame Potassium. Cheese: Low Moisture Part Skim Mozzarella Cheese (Pasteurized Part Skim Milk, Cheese Cultures, Salt, Enzymes). Cooked Italian Sausage: Pork, Water, Spices, Salt, Dextrose, Favorings, TBHQ, BHT, Citric Acid. Pepperoni: Pork and Beef, salt, Spices, Dextrose, Sodium Ascorbate, Sodium Nitrite, BHA, BHT, Citric Acid. Red Peppers. Green Peppers. Onions. French Bread: Water, Vital Wheat Gluten, Wheat Protein Isolate (Wheat Gluten, Lactic Acid, Sulfite), Whole Wheat Flour, Is olated Oat Product, Modified Wheat Starch and/or Corn Starch, Enriched Unbleached Wheat Flour (Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Wheat Bran, Acacia Gum, Contains 2 Percent or Less of Sugar, Salt, Yeast, Soybean Oil, Oligofructose, Fructose, Acesulfame Potassium, Datem (Diacetyl Tartaric Acid Ester of Mono and Diglycerides), Ethoxylated Mono and Diglycerides, Mono amd Diglycerides, Hudrogenated Vegtetable Oil (Cottonseed and.or Soybean), Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Wheat Flour, Enzymes, Ascorbic Acid, Calium Propianate. (Contains: 11% Sausage, 2.7% Pepperoni).

If you get a new cell phone -- cell phone fraudulent billing

I normally only post about low carb, but if you or someone you know gets a new cell phone, beware.

Some of the previous services and agreements that pertained to the old owner "carry over" to you and you will get billed.

First, you think it might just be annoying text messaging spam, but then you get billed for it. Read about my ongoing debacle with sms.ac and know that it could happen to you. Click here for more.

TastyKake Sensable Sugar Free (Lower Carb) Treats: a Sugar Free Twinkie

First there was low carb Oreos, now there are low carb Twinkies (OK, OK, they aren't really Twinkies because they are made by a different company, but it is the first thing I thought of.) I picked these up at my local Market Basket. I hardly ever look at the cake section anymore, but I managed to find these one day when I was looking for some desserts for the kids at the church.

Now, these aren't the best things for you. They have maltitol, they don't have whole flour, and they have lots of chemicals.

However, they come in single serving wrappers, unlike some of the former Entenman's products, and I find that single serving wrappers go a long way towards keeping me from over eating. And if you need a dessert quickly and once in a while, you can take one of these cakes, and put some berries and whipped cream on top. My sister-in-law's family came down, and everyone agreed that this dessert tasted great. I'm sure anyone would think it was adequate.

I went to the web site, and they advertise the fact that you can find products in your area, but the Sensable Sugar Free products are not available on the pull down menu. Furthermore, it isn't updated properly because I couldn't get my local Market Basket to show up, and I know they carry them. You can order these sugar free products via the mail on their website though: 14 packages for $23.95. You get the whole product line though. The only ones I have tried are the Finger Cakes because they have fewer carbs than some of the other products.

Whatever you do, don't eat these often. And of course, as you know, it is better to not eat them at all -- but we all fall off the wagon sometimes.

	Sensables Sugar Free Tastykake Chocolate Chip Finger Cakes
Serving Size	1 cake 32g
Calories	110
Total Fat	8g
Saturated Fat	2g
Cholesterol	15mg
Sodium	110mg
Total Carbohydrates	13g
Dietary Fiber	4g
Sugar	0g
Sugar Alcohol	5g
Protein	3g
Ingredients	Water, Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Shortening (Soybean, Cottonseed Oils), Eggs, Bleached Enriched Flour (Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate-B1, Riboflavin-B2, Folic Acid), Polydextrose, Maltitol, Sugar Free Chocolate Chips (Maltitol, Chocolate, Cocoa Butter, Soy Lecithin, Artificial Flavor), Whey Protein Concentrate (Milk), May contain two percent or less of:  Food Starch Modified, Leavening (Baking Soda, Sodium Aluminum Phosphate, Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Monocalcium Phosphate), Skim Milk, Wheat Gluten, Cellulose Gum, Soy Lecithin, Gum Arabic, Salt, Propylene Glycol Monoesters, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Artificial Flavor, Guar Gum, Sodium Propionate and Sorbic Acid added to preserve freshness, Sucralose, Xanthan Gum, Sorbitan Monostearate, Mono and Diglycerides, Polysorbate 60.

Atkins Company files for Bankruptcy

With the Atkins company filing for bankruptcy, a host of inaccuracies are again flooding the news wires.

1. The falsehood that Atkins was overweight when he died, even Mort Zuckerman from US News and World Reports repeated this on the Situation with Tucker Carlson on August 1. He wasn't. And more here.

2. That Atkins would have approved of the foods that the Atkins company put out after he died. Most of the Atkins foods were filled with Maltitol and were overpriced. This blog rarely, if ever, endorsed a food product put out by Atkins.

Embedded in this Reuters story is the following statistic:

The low-carb craze peaked in early 2004, when over 9 percent of U.S. adults claimed to be on such a diet, according to market research firm NPD Group. That figure declined to 2.2 percent last month.

No one said that everyone should be on the diet, however, I suspect that this number will go up as more and more research comes out about how certain people really respond to the Atkins diet, and for them, it is healthy.

Certain parts of what Atkins espoused pertain to everyone. Reduce sugar intake, increase fiber, and stay away from products made with white processed flour.

Dad back in the hospital...

I know I posted this earlier, but it somehow got deleted.

My dad went back into the hospital early last week. He is still there. Posting will resume as soon as I am able.

Sale at Netrition, Including Dreamfields

I just finished my netrition order because tomorrow, Thursday, is the last day for the Dreamfield pasta sale of $2.19 a box. (More on Dreamfields here and here.) I ordered a lot of it to keep in the pantry. (For more on netrition, click here.)

I also ordered the following products:

• Keto Jams (the best tasting low sugar jam out there, and Keto is now out of business)

A whole lot of syrups and let me tell you why. My kids love Slush Puppies and Slurpies and Italian Ices in the summer. There is no way that I can keep letting them eat these sugar laden products, but I have to substitute something else. I was able to purchase a slush machine yesterday at Costco on clearance for $29.97 that looks like it will make great slushes (I hope!). With these syrups, the kids might be satisfied with the substitutes, and I can make fun summer drinks with them by just adding a bit of rum for the adults!

• DaVinci Watermelon Syrup and I already have a DaVinci pump so it will look just like the slush syrup. If the watermelon flavor is good, then I will try grape and raspberry in the future.
• Baja Bob's New Martini Mixes in Sour Apple and Blue Raspberry! Obviously, I won't put the liquor into the slushes for the kids, but if the syrups taste like Sour Apple and Blue Raspberry, the kids will love them, and they will be a cool treat for the summer. (Also, much cheaper than buying everyone slushes out!)

Of course, I'll let you know how they come out once they get here.

• CarbQuick. I haven't tried it yet, but I just received an advance copy of a book that I want to tell you more about that would make this product obsolete, but I have to do a bakeoff!
• Black Soy Beans. I've been looking for these everywhere. I want to try them in my chili. High fiber and low carb.
• Erythritol Granular Powder. I want to try this plain to see what happens.

For my complete shopping list, click here.

Are newer versions of low sugar candies better?

According to this article, the Chairman of Jelly Belly has type II diabetes. He wants to create more low/no sugar candies. I'm sending him a copy of this post: Sell Your Stock in Maltitol Companies.

What About Short Bursts of Exercise for Kids?

Ok, I've talked about two studies that show high intensity short bursts of exercise can be very good for you. (Click here for first study: six minutes of exercise can give the same health benefits as six hours, and click here for the second study: short bursts of exercise are far better for diabetics.)

Well, a new study about kids and exericise shows that:

"For most obese adolescents, even if they weigh more than 300 pounds, their hearts and lungs are still healthy enough to allow them to exercise vigorously," Yanovski said...

For obese children in this study, simply pedaling a bike at the lowest setting for 4 minutes brought them close to the "lactate threshold," a point where working muscles aren't receiving enough oxygen and exercise can quickly become unsustainable.

"For such children," Yanovski said, "very low intensities of exercise are needed so that movement can be sustained."  (empahsis mine)

But according to these two other studies, why not have all obese kids do the six minutes of exerise a week to keep up the cardiovascular health and improve muscles because these overweight kids can probably do this type of exercise.

The study, published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, involved 23 moderately fit men and women aged between 25 and 35. They were each made to cycle 18.6 miles, as a baseline, before being split up and put on different training regimes three times a week.

The first group cycled for two hours a day at a moderate pace, the second were put through their paces at a higher intensity for just 10 minutes a day in 60 second bursts, while the third cycled at an intense sprint in 30 second bursts, with four minutes of rest in between.

At the end of two weeks, each group was again asked to cycle 18.6 miles, with the surprising result that each group was found to have improved to the same level.

Tests also showed that the rate at which the volunteers' muscles were able to absorb oxygen also improved to the same degree. The study also revealed that the two-minute workouts produced muscle enzymes essential for the prevention of type 2 diabetes in the same way that the longer workouts did.

I would be really interested to see if the results for kids matched the results for adults.