Dessert damange control . . . fiber, other strategies?

[daus_n_ny]

I'm still in "Intervention" (and liking it) so a real dessert is not going to happen this Thanksgiving. Someday though it would be nice to have a strategy to minimize the big carb hit to enjoy something in the "decadent" category on rare occassions.

What about adding fiber . . . 3 tablespoons to knock off 10 or 12 grams which in theory would bring a piece of pie down to about 30 EEC. Maybe there are some other strategies as well that others know about.

This forum is excellent and I appreciate all of the great advice!

[Mitra]

I'm afraid that adding fibre to a recipe doesn't reduce the effective carb count. You have to add the fibre carbs to the total, so the effective carbs would be unchanged - unless, of course, you're talking about substituting the fibre for some of the carby ingredients in the recipe.

The main ways to "de-carb" a sweet recipe are to reduce the sugar and/or substitute a non-caloric sweetener, and to replace some/all of the flour with some combination of ground nuts and/soy flour/protein powder/commercial low carb flour. If you look around the recipe section here you can see what others have done to make LC versions of their favourite sweet dishes.

[Ottawa]

Daus,
Unfortunately it doesn't work that way.

A piece of pie with 2 Tbs. of bran on top still gives the same number (ECC) of digestible carbs.
Although there are such things as "Carb Blockers" I have never seen a successful long term application, plus they produce lots of gas.

From Fitday 1/8th of a an apple pie

Total: 356
Fat: 17
Carbs: 51 - 2 = 49 ECC
Fiber: 2
Protein: 3

With 3 tsp. of Xanthum gum (7.8 grams of fiber = 0 ECC) added or eaten afterwards

Total: 356
Fat: 17
Carbs: 58.8 - 9.8 = 49 ECC
Fiber: 9.8
Protein: 3

There is no carb gain. Hope this helps.

Sorry Mitra ... it took me a while to crunch some numbers.;)

[laughingW]

I think the "3 bite rule" for sacred occasions works better.

The other thing about fiber is, the whole point is to make your body separate the fiber from the digestible carbs. Not have pre-separated fiber added afterward.

[deirdra]

Adding extra fiber causes me to hold on to the water retained because of the excess carbs even longer (4-5 days) than if I didn't add it (2-3 days).