There is such a very lucrative and ready market for food companies to exploit the overweight and obese population 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 flavors. 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.

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.

The Atkins diet has several such products, however, they are not the only ones.
I don’t want to just point them out when there are many other manufactures that sell these kinds of products. Your store shelves are full of them. But, just to give you a small example of the rip-offs look at the following products.

Atkins Morning Shine (Chocolate Chip Crisp) 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, even with a discount, this means a very expensive breakfast!

Now, compare this with four large eggs scrambled in butter. Their cost will average more than 80% less, contain all the nutrients in the Atkins bars – and more besides – and they’ll be more natural and healthier.

Look at the Atkins Advantage Shake, it’s another such product…try and find the food in this one… 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.

There is slightly more real food in the Carbolite Chocolate Flavor Crisp Wafer than in the Atkins products, so it might just be slightly healthier to eat. BUT look at the price!

Carbolite also offers another bar which is called a Milk Chocolate Flavor 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!

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. Financially they are not only a 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.

What am I saying with all this? Check the ingredients in the products you are buying. Make sure you are getting what you need. Or, even better still…go natural. Snacks can be very satisfying when they consist of whole and natural foods. And in the end they will be healthier for you and may save you money.