Food Fight

The other day I bought some whole grain tortillas because at the store, I glanced at the total calories and they were only 90 calories each. Plus they looked nice and hearty. When I got home, I realized that they claimed to have only 5 “net carbs.” That’s crazy for a tortilla. Then I saw how they did it: by adding an insane amount of fiber. 14 grams!

19 grams of carbs – 14 grams of fiber = 5 net carbs.

That is cheating. The average person needs 25-35 grams of fiber. Much more fiber than that isn’t healthy. If I had two of these tortillas for dinner, I would already max out my fiber for the day, even before I had any fruits and vegetables!

Fiber is great in so many way: lowers cholesterol and prevents all sorts of GI issues. But it also wisks away important minerals before our body can absorb them. And lots of fiber, especially if you body isn’t used to it, can cause gas and dehydration. Not fun.

Adding a bunch of fiber to packaged products to advertise them as high fiber or to lower the net carbs isn’t right. People need to be getting their fiber from naturally high-fiber food like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. We can just depend on lots of supplemented package food for this.

I see these tortillas, and other products like it, as a start of a troubling trend.