
August 15, 2007
Meal Planning, Food and Diet
Question from Hawthorne, California, USA:
After reviewing your answers to the questions about sugar alcohols, it leaves me puzzled. In many instances, you contradict yourselves. In some questions, you say to count sugar alcohols the same as sugar. Then, in other questions, you say to count sugar alcohols as half the sugar. How do we count sugar alcohols? With the low carbohydrate diets, such as Atkins, sugar alcohols were not counted at all towards total net carbohydrates.
Answer:
According to the American Dietetic Association, you may subtract one-half of the sugar alcohols from the total carbohydrates, no matter what the amount. For example, if a muffin has 18 grams of total carbohydrate and 6 grams of sugar alcohol, you may subtract 3 grams of sugar alcohol (one-half of six) from the total carbohydrate. This results in a “net carb” of 15 grams of carbohydrate. I hope this example helps.
JMS