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EventsThe Problem with Low Carb in America
It certainly is not easy to eat LCHF in the US. This is a good example. Beef jerky, dried meat, that must be a perfect low carb snack if you need one, right?
On the package it says “5 grams of total carbs” though. That seems a bit high for dried meat… and it gets worse:
Fifty percent sugar
Reading the nutrition panel this dried meat turns out to be a real trap for a strict low carber. This tiny three ounce bag counts as three servings. So those five grams of carbs turns out to be fifteen grams in reality.
And it’s not any old carbs. It’s pure sugar. Almost half the energy in this bag of dried meat comes from added sugar. That’s just sick.
This isn’t low carb – it’s high sugar.
If you would eat 2 500 calories of this dried meat (what you may need in a day) you would get 250 grams of pure sugar. That’s the amount you would get from drinking 2.5 litres (84 oz) of soda.
Its not easy to eat LCHF in the US.
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When I really started looking at the labels I was amazed at how much sugar is packed into foods where you would not expect it. It is really quite frustrating.
I think you've made a bit of an error interpreting the numbers. it basically says all the carbs in the pack are from sugars i.e.- 5 gms. But the percentage is referring to percentage of the DAILY VALUES of sugars a person SHOULD be consuming. So therefore, the total daily amount of sugar you should be consuming is 10 gms. That doesn't mean half of each jerky is sugar.
it's not that bad. You can eat 2/3rds of the packet to hit the recommended sugar dosage of the day. Which might be overdoing it anyway. :)
And if you "do" low carb the amount of sugar you should consume daily is about 0 ;)
The label also doesn´t say anything that the sugar is part of any daily intake - it says that the carbs in total is 2% of that - meaning that they indicate that you should eat 250 grams of carbs a day - obviously nothing anyone on low carb would agree on.
No idea what label you actually looked at - surely not the one on picture in the post.
In the US, one's better off with fatty sausage sticks as a snack food than beef jerky. The meat is usually a mix of pork and poultry and sometimes beef, usually in a casing made of reconstituted collagen, but there usually is a fair amount of animal fat and not much sugar. Another choice is pork rinds, although the more puffy varieties resemble packing foam in texture, and the flavoring sometimes includes a lot of sugar and maltodextrin.
I have to respectfully disagree, Andreas. I think that a major problem is that people think that eating low carb means buying "low carb products". On a forum the other day, a person said it was too hard to eat low carb in her town because there are no low carb foods at her grocery store.
No low carb foods? Really? How about beef, chicken and fish? And vegetables, fruit, nuts and seeds? Is there no butter at her store? Are there no eggs?
It is easy to eat LCHF in the US. Just eat real food and stop depending on "low carb products". I have been doing this for over two years, and the foods I buy do not even have nutritional labels. Oh, wait, I take it back. My butter has a label. :)
Rebecca: No kidding. Kinda like the folks who say it's hard to eat "gluten-free." I'm like... "Meat's gluten-free! Fruits and veggies are gluten-free! What's the problem?" What they mean is gluten-free bread and pasta. Because we all know bread and pasta are REQUIRED foods for good health. The USDA said so!
There is a mind set that needs to change. Yes, low carb, high fat means that you'll probably have to spend a bit more time in the kitchen than you did when you ate boxed cereal and those "diet" low fat TV dinners, as many of us did prior to turning to LCHF. But, it's worth it! Eating real, whole foods (meats, eggs, vegetables, nuts, etc.) rather than "low carb" tortillas, bagels, beer, sauces and so forth is the way to go. It's the way to ultimately get the real health benefits of LCHF.
Because one goes directly to those areas wher they have the dairys, fresh meat, fresh vegetables, egg, butter and so on.
One of the most crucial reasons why people overeat is dissatisfaction with their lives. If given the choice of eating a nutritious meal of roast chicken, cauliflower mashed "potatoes" or a cheesesteak hoagie, fries, and a large soda or milk shake, which one do you think would do the best job of pushing down the hurt? Which of these meals seems "more fun".
The author states that eating 2500 calories of jerky equates to 250 grams of sugar.... Except that is 50 servings.... 16 bags of jerky.... No normal person is going to eat that much. Jerky is a snack food, but the author treats it like a meal.
Lousy article full of strawmen.
I disagree. The problem with processed foods in America is that it always has to be sweet. I recall a work colleague of mine from France who can't eat anything that comes out of a supermarket, because it is too sweet. Pickles have sugar, spaghetti sauce has sugar, soup has sugar, plain whole wheat bread has sugar, mustard has sugar, just about everything EVERYTHING made in America and placed on a supermarket shelf has sugar. It's crazy.
I LOVE going to supermarkets in France...nothing has sugar in it...except of course some obvious foods (like jam). Everything else is sugar free....and absolutely delicious!!!!
So, no it is not histrionic babble. No reason to put sugar and brown sugar, and the other chemical flavour enhancer crap, on the jerky. And yes...good plain jerky made from nothing but meat and salt DOES exist. And it's delicious. Perhaps not delicious to the weak palates of the sugaraholic Americans....but, heh...what can you do about it...they will possibly eventually lose their teeth and become diabetic...and jerky will likely no longer be their go-to food anyway. Bon apetit...enjoy your sugar.