I just noticed an ad by Google that showed up under “Low Carb Foods” while I was browsing TuDiabetes. I almost fell out of my chair laughing.
Low Carb Foods
Try Lightly Salted Ruffles or Low Sodium Tostitos - 50% Less Salt!
www.lowsodium.ca
Ruffles are potato chips! (I don’t know if they are sold outside of Canada.) Somehow I don’t see them getting much business from TuDiabetes members.
OMG!!! hahahaha oh that is a good one.Let’s see how low carb they are when you bs is running high. Too funny
Hmm… well, I’d look twice at potato chips, but in moderation (i.e., count the starch exchanges – an average potato, about 12 ounces (340 g), has about six!), potatoes are high in potassium and other good nutrients. So, an occasional fingerling or red jacket potato (each being rather smaller than that 12 ounces!) is not necessarily a bad thing…
OTOH, if you look on the back of the package, a one-ounce “serving” of chips usually only contains about 1 to 1.5 starch exchanges, which I think actually does count as “low carb” to the non-diabetic world. OTTH, the usual smallest-bag-you-can-find contains 1.5 to 2 “servings”… and on the fourth hand… well, Google ads are sponsored, but they are not vetted by Google for appropriateness to topic.
I think someone just accidentally attached an inappropriate tag to the ad. I don’t think they really meant that potato chips are a good low carb food. It was just a pretty funny thing to see on this forum.
Hmm… maybe it wasn’t so accidental after all. As I write this I see 5 targeted Goggle Ads; 3 of them are for diabetic diets or recipes (under the tag “Diabetes (or Diabetic) Diet”, 1 is for a blood sugar meter under the same tag, and the 5th is our low sodium potato chip ad, under the tag “Potato Chip” this time. Interesting that Google correctly picked up that this was a diabetic forum for 4 of the ads but not for the chips The ad does not show up today if I Google “Low Carb”. Maybe someone noticed this thread and fixed the problem. Of course, it does still show up if I Google “Healthy Snack”
I’m not a low carbber, so on rare occaisions I will eat a small potato, but I can’t think of many worse foods for diabetics (or anyone else) than potato chips. Lots of fat, lots of salt, lots of carbs, and deep fried to kill off any vitamins that might have been there in the first place. Potato chips are the junk food that other junk foods try to emulate. Tasty, yes, but not low carb or healthy.
The potatoes aren’t any worse than the rest of the crap Google Ads spew all over diabetes related pages. “Don’t be evil” my foot.
Today (Sunday) the ad is showing up under “No Carb Food”. And to think that I thought low carb potatoes were hard to believe…
This is no longer funny. Jenny is right when she calls it crap
Some of the early glycemic index (GI) numbers were based on pretty lousy data. So are some of the current numbers.
When I first looked at GI, THE reference book had just been reissued, and carrots had been reclassified from High (92) to Low (32). It seemed like such an extraordinary change that I looked into it. The number in the first edition of the book had been based on only 5 samples! The second edition’s number was based on 10 samples (I think). It wasn’t much of an improvement, as far as I was concerned. I told my doctor that the dietician she had sent me to had no business touting GI diets until there was better data.
It’s a sad commentary on scientific literacy when PhDs and medical researchers publish garbage such as that, and family doctors and dieticians base their patient treatment on it. I wonder how many people still avoid carrots because of a mistaken belief that they will spike blood sugars.
I don’t mean to say that I don’t believe in GI. I do. I just think it went mainstream before it was ready.
Check into the literature on Glycemic Load (GL). GL takes GI to the next level, moderating it by the amount of carbs in a standard serving of the food in question, as opposed to a standard amount of carbs. To me, GL makes a lot more sense than GI.
I have to take a good bit of extra insulin if I’m going to indulge in potato chips. But one thing I’ve found that has very little effect on my glucose readings is baby potatoes. The smaller the potato, the less starchy it is. I roast the baby taters, then toss them in olive oil, sea salt, herbs and maybe a bit of fresh squeezed lemon juice. Very tasty! I enjoy about a cup of them with dinner.
I’ve tried the same recipe with large potatoes cut into small pieces and had a whammy of a sugar spike as a result.
I agree. GL is the way to go. Who cares how much 50 g of carb from a particular food will increase your blood sugar if a typical serving gives you nowhere near 50 g of carb? Watermelon is a high GI (72) fruit but has a low GL (4).
The problem I mentioned with carrots was in a book published in 1999, and it wasn’t corrected until the book was revised in 2003.
I veiw the potato chip isle in the grocery store as a no-man’s-land . It is just a bridge to get to the other end of the isle. Just recently, I remember someone asking about a no sugar canned fruit. I picture an empty can with a real nice label. Of course they would have to charge more for it because it was “different” .
Jim
hmmm ruffles…
potato chips are a dear friend of mine when I am feeling like I need to run up really high really fast…
But they are so tasty… 8^)
Ivan!
Ruffles have ridges, and, yes, they are very much sold outside of Canada.
One nice thing about the Mozilla Firebox browser is: it is very simple to filter out many ads, including Google’s.
Potatoes may not be all bad. There was a piece on MSNBC’s website a couple of weeks ago about them as a low carb food. The claim/assertion/research was that when a potato is refrigerated after cooking, the carbs somehow become “resistant carbs”, meaning that they do not break down digestively and just pass through the system. I don’t know if it works or what to do about carb ratios with them. Now, if only they could find a way to make french fries out of resistant carbs!!
Didn’t Ralph Kramden lose money when he invested in “No-Cal PIzza”?
IN DEFENSE OF POTATO CHIPS RE GI and GL
Can’t say anything good about the fat content, though, LOL. I have never noticed a spike from Potato Chips, which my Type 1 niece loves and eats every day. She will get either the 15gram or 21 gram small bag for dessert after lunch or after dinner. She is able to eat these, though not in huge amounts. Sensor has been off but I tested most of the foods she eats when we started the sensor.
Glycemic Index for: Potato Chips
Food: Potato Chips
Glycemic Index: 54
Glycemic Index Rating: Low
Food: Potato Chips
Food Serving Size: 50g
Glycemic Load per Food Serving: 11
Glycemic Load Explained
While the glycemic index classifies foods according to how fast 50g of carbs in them raises our blood glucose levels, Glycemic Load indicates how fast a standard portion of a particular food (like Potato Chips) raises blood glucose, and thus gives an indication of glycemic and insulin response.
I ate a sweet potato last night with dinner and I was still running high this morning. I bolused for it (I thought) accurately but I was high 2 hours later and then at bedtime. I was still 168 this am. No more sweet potatoes for me 
It’s weird, regular potatoes are a horrid sugar load for me, and hit my blood glucose worse than an equal carb count of pure sugar.
Sweet potatoes, on the other hand, are low-impact for me. Sweet potato chips/fries are a godsend.