Anyone find a keto bar (pre-made, wrapped and ready to go) that actually tastes good? The Atkins ones taste the best IMHO, but upset my stomach and their calculations don’t make sense, so I never know what to bolus. Quest are too tough unless I microwave them, but that trumps the convenience factor. I have tried so many and don’t really like any of them, but have a few I buy just to be able to grab something quickly if needed.
I’m not sure if they are keto or not? I know that keto is looking for a specific fat percentage?
I really like ka’chava peanut butter bars. They have 3 net carbs and like 210 calories. As with all these low carb items I still need insulin for the net carbs and a some for fat protein but that’s just my personal experience.
I sometimes carry the Justin’s almond or peanut butter packets in my purse to eat with extra dark chocolate for a quick snack. Most of my snacks are PB related.
Your right about quest - they taste like hell!
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Just looked those up, I’ve never seen them anywhere. I don’t think they’re keto, but 9 net carbs (at least the one I saw) isn’t too bad.
While you are right that Quest bars taste terrible, some of their cookies are pretty good. Of course they do what everyone does and count sugar alcohol as zero impact carbs, whereas for many of us a 2 grams of sugar alcohol has the same impact as 1 gram of sugar. So looking at their Birthday Cake flavor cookie (a snack with 5 grams of protein not a meal replacement or even near a meal) it has three grams of fiber, one gram of sugar, and six grams of sugar alcohol. Quest wants you to count that as 1 net impact carb. If you take the sugar alcohol as 50%, as I do, it has 4 net carbs - 3 from the sugar alcohol 1 from the regular sugar. Even if you count the sugar alcohol gram for gram (most don’t need to do that, but some do) it still has only 7 grams of impact carbs since fiber has no calories and truly does have zero impact. I always thought the way we in the USA count fiber is weird anyway. WE take a zero calorie carb, add it to our carb count and then subtract it back out again. I think the way much of continental Europe counts fiber, by not including it in carb count to begin with makes more sense. Those five grams of protein also add an impact carb. The reason we usually don’t count impact from protein is that it hits much later than carbs in terms of effect on blood sugar, so by the time the protein raise our blood sugar, much of the effect of the carbs has already passed. So it does not affect the number our blood sugar peaks at - unless we happen to eat a 2nd meal or snack at just at the right time to combine with the impact of the protein we ate.
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Anyway - bottom line. Some of the Quest cookies taste good, unlike the bars. The Birthday Cake and Chocolate Cake are the only ones I have tried. But you have to read the labels and count the sugar alcohol and protein in a way that is right for you.
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Thanks for explaining sugar alcohols to me! I’ve always found they impact my BGs. Now I have a guideline (50%) vs not counting them at all. Still an experimental process but better than not counting them and going high. I’ll try the cookies.
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Munk Pack bars!! They are amazing, 2-4 net carbs, no sugar alcohols. Allulose is primary sweetener, no impact on my BG. Nuts and seeds. Some are drizzled with chocolate. I order them by the box/case now.
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I hope that it helps. As I said, not a hard and fast rule. Depends on your body; works for many, not for everybody.
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Allulose is great. Allulose has almost exactly calories and impact at one tenth the level of table sugar. So a bar with 10 grams of allulose has the calories and impact from allulose of one gram of sugar. If you use allulose in cooking or baking you need to take into consideration that in takes one third more allulose to get the same sweetness as one teaspoon of sugar. So per amount of sweetness, allulose has about 13.333% of the blood sugar impact and calories of table sugar.
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@GarLipow , where did you find this info on allulose? I ask because:
1g dextrose raises me ~35mg/dL.
I’m also sensitive to sugar alcohols. 1g xylitol in a piece of gum will raise my BG about 20mg/dL.
I’ve used/eaten allulose over the past 3 years. Even with a serving containing 20g of allulose, I’ll subtract all the allulose from my carb count and my bolus is still dead on.
According to what you state, if I don’t account for 2g (out of the 20g) of the allulose, I’d theoretically end up 70mg/dL too high. That definitely doesn’t happen to me, not even several hours later.
So I’m quite curious as to how that allulose calculation was derived!
As a T1D, I ALWAYS count protein into my bolus. I use the extended bolus option on my pump, square wave, for the protein portion of my meals. For me, every 8g protein = 1g carb.
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Allulose is not a sugar alcohol. But I think I misunderstood something from the following: Allulose: What It Is, Benefits and Risks – Cleveland Clinic . Apparently, while I was right that allulose has calories, the way it is absorbed means that it does not impact blood sugar, at least not for most people. So you are right - zero blood sugar impact for most people even though it has a few (not many) calories. I assumed because it was a sugar that is similar to glucose that its blood sugar impact would be proportional to its calories. But I was wrong.
Correct, allulose is not a sugar alcohol - I was giving examples of my carb sensitivity, in contrast to my experience with allulose.
I have only tried this once, with butter chicken, and it worked so well. It was a member here who helped me figure it out. I should try to do this more, because yesterday I had a ham/cheese/chicken cordon blue with minimal carbs (like 13) and I was higher than I’d expect to be on that low of carbs for hours afterwards.
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