They Lie about 'Keto'

The other day I was talking to one of my caregivers about the food we’re serving.

She opened the refrigerator and proudly showed me the ‘Keto’ tortillas she had bought to serve everyone.

Keto tortillas?

It’s possible I guess. Maria Emmerich can make almost anything Keto – including tortillas.

I was guessing some food corporation didn’t put the same kind of thought into their tortillas.

Yes the package said ‘Keto’ on the front. That’s why you need to turn the package to the back and look at the ingredients.

The ingredients showed items like ‘potato starch’ and ‘wheat starch’. There were 16g of carbohydrates per serving. As you can guess a serving is 1 tortilla.

Compare that a package of regular ‘non-keto’ tortilla. I just randomly googled a package. Those tortillas had 15 grams of carbohydrates or 1 gram less than the keto tortilla.

As you can imagine, we threw out the tortilla package. We try to keep our residents under 25 grams of carbohydrates a day. The tortillas aren’t helping.

‘How can they advertise that they’re keto when they’re not?’ you may be asking.

It’s a good question. The truth is that the FDA does not really have a definition for ‘low-carb’. They really don’t have any definition for Keto.

As one law firm puts it:

“[A] claim about the level of a nutrient in a food in relation to the Reference Daily Intake (RDI) established for that nutrient in §101.9(c)(8)(iv) or Daily Reference Value (DRV) established for that nutrient in §101.9(c)(9), (excluding total carbohydrates) may only be made on the label or in labeling of the food if …

21 C.F.R. § 101.54(a) (emphasis added).

Changing this legal landscape would entail petitioning FDA to promulgate a regulation defining “low-carb,” and possibly other emphatic (e.g., “carb free”) and comparative (e.g., “[reduced/less] carbs”) claims about the total carbohydrate content of a food.  See 21 C.F.R. § 101.69.  FDA’s present NCC regulations were promulgated in the early 1990s and are a bit dated.  The FDA Nutrition Innovation Strategy could be used as an opportunity to update NCCs for total carbohydrates. “  

In other words, they don’t really have anything. The FDA only requires companies put the amount of carbs on their nutrition information table. They also require the amount of carbs of fiber and sugar. They don’t have any regulations about adding ‘low-carb’ or ‘keto’ anywhere else on the packaging.

Since there are no definitions of ‘low-carb’ officially adopted, companies can pretty much determine what they consider low carb.

That’s why it’s so important to read the ingredients of the foods you purchase. Not just the front of the label or the advertising.

Food companies jump on trends. And keto is trending right now. I’ve had other caregivers buy ‘keto’ foods that turn out not to be.

Keto chocolate chip cookies.

Keto breakfast cereals.

Keto donuts.

These are just some examples that should send your Spidey senses tingling. They can be made Keto if you make them at home. Maria Emmerich has lots of recipes for treats like these on her website and in her cookbooks.

They probably aren’t make truly keto by large corporations. Shopping at the grocery store is truly ‘buyer beware’.