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Is this few number of calories too good to be true?

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Forgive me for a long story, but I want to give the background before getting to my question..

The other day a coworker found a store about 15 minutes away from our workplace that specializes in low carb, low sugar/sugar free foods. They carry a variety of commercially made products (the most Walden Farms items I have ever seen anywhere), along with a wide variety of baked goods, frozen dinners and soups, all of which they produce in-house. They also carry "carbolite" ice cream and offer frappuchinos and milkshakes made with this ice cream. This business has been around for several years, I did find a newspaper article from the early 2000's making reference to their current store..

My coworker went there yesterday and bought one of their "famous pizzas", which comes frozen, wrapped in cellophane. It's 12" round, obviously homemade, has an extremely thin crust and is advertised as having (for the ENTIRE pizza) 130 calories, 16 grams of protein, 5 grams of carbs, and I don't remember the stats for sugar, fiber, etc. According to the store's website, the pizza contains "defatted soy flour, skim mozzarella cheese and tomato sauce". She heated it in the toaster oven for lunch and shared it with me. It wasn't bad and would serve as a satisfactory fix for when I get a pizza craving..

We both went there today and we each got one of their frappuchino's, made with the carbolite ice cream and "whipped cream". When asked, the counter person said there were "about 45-50 calories" in the frappuchino. I have to admit, this was the best d@mn thing I've had since before I started Medifast. Tasted like a thick, chocolate milkshake. Very filling and satisfying..

The store's website is extremely skimpy when it comes to nutritional information, and provides no "official" type documents providing the nutritional data for their products. The nutritional data provided in the store is either handwritten or home typed and taped to the counters or display case doors. The packaging for the in-store produced items either has no labels at all, or if there is a label it has no nutritional information listed, other than ingredients and heating instructions..

My question is, this is seeming to be too good to be true. But, how do I go about finding out the authenticity of their nutritional claims? Short of purchasing each item and sending them somewhere to be tested (don't even know where that would be), is there some kind of local government agency that oversees this kind of matter?.

Thanks for reading through this whole novel. Hopefully someone can help point me in the right direction!.

Carol..

Comments (9)

I found a store like this on the internet and all the goods made my mouth water, but once I started looking at the nutrition labels I would see that things had outrageous amounts of sugar or other such things that can be burned as fuel. This is bad, because the whole idea behind Medifast is not to give our bodies all that extra stuff to burn so our body will burn our excess fat. I would not use anything off plan for the time being, but it sounds like these might be fun treats to utilize while in maintenance...

Comment #1

Hi Carol!.

I was wondering what store that was as I live in Washingtonville and I see you live in Central Valley..

Thanks!!..

Comment #2

I work in Pearl River, the store is located in New City. Zambetti's...

Comment #3

I've had similar experiences. I also wouldn't take the word of an employee that possibly only makes minimum wage and actually knows very little about the product they sell and are only spouting the propaganda their employers tell them to. I find it extremely hard to believe that even the thinnest of pizza crusts can have only 5 carbs per serving, unless they are considering a serving as a bite or 2. Same with a frappucino that has both carbolite ice cream and whipped cream. Basically, as far as I'm concerned, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Also, just found this on the internet....

Http://carbolitefoods.com/.

As noted above, these might make some good options for maintenance, but not for the 5&1...

Comment #4

Yep, too good to be true (dang it). I sub 1/4th of the flour in any recipe I make with soy flour. I just looked on the box, and 1/4 cup has 80 calories and 10 grams of carb,,,no way a 12 inch pizza, no matter how thin the crust, could have just 5 grams of carb. It was a great fantasy though, while it lasted! these options sound just fine for maintenance though...

Comment #5

A lot of people will say 5 carbs but mean 5 "net carbs". They will try to trick you!..

Comment #6

Good point, "net" carbs are the carbs left after fiber subtracted,,,right? so just looked again, and soy flour has 6 grams of fiber for that same 1/4 cup,,,so leaves 4 net carbs per 1/4 cup/ but Medifast counts full % of carbs, but the pizza makers could be doing just the "net" Could get confusing, and doesn't take much for me!..

Comment #7

My apologies for not being more specific. I definitely mean these for Maintenance, not for during the 5&1 phase. Even during Maintenance though, I want to make sure that I am accurately tracking how many calories, carbs, etc. I'm consuming..

Sigh....everyone is reinforcing my instinct that if it seems/tastes/appears too good to be true, then it is. Guess I'll be saving those frappuchino's for a very rare, very special treat...

Comment #8

I think a lot of these products are pretty much "correct" in their nutritional listingsor at least "net carbs".

However, having been a successful Atkins dieterthese products are dangerous for the diet! (for me at least).

Atkins worked for me before all these "low carb" options became available. I used to search all over, especially when in a new place, for their "Low carb" or "Natural (which often carried LC)" or "World foods (also why did these carry LC??)" stores..

Basically, having the ability to eat all these once "off limit" items ruined Atkins for me. I stopped eating the fresh foods and "whole" foods I had been in the beginning. I also stopped being able to restrain how much of these items I ate..

For me, when I get to Maintenance (when ever that may be) I think I am going to choose the "real" food over the low carb variety. Real or even Light icecream, instead of low carb, because my brain goes Oh! this is high calorie! high fat! (even the light, compared to no icecream) can't have but a taste!.

At least that's the plan..

Comment #9


This question was taken from a support group/message board and re-posted here so others can learn from it.