To be fed up of the low calorie = healthy thing?

[somethinginbetweenlove]

I keep seeing adverts on social media for these low calorie “rice cakes”, you can have 21 pieces for “just 90 calories!”, and they’re marketed as being made with chia seeds and quinoa.

You look at the nutrition information and if the 21g portion they’re 10g sugar, 1g protein and the rest is pretty much just crap.

Am I the only one who’s really tired of this? If you’re hungry for a sweet treat have some fruit, or yogurt and honey, or just have a bloody chocolate bar!

YANBU although I'm now quite a plumpy dumpy, so I might be tempted by stuff like that 😞

I’m losing weight, but I just think it’s so disingenuous. The “rice cakes” (unsure if they actually contain rice) just won’t fill you up, so they’ll lead to you eating more.

I think things are improving a lot. The main approach I see being pushed is to not eat UPFs, eat high protein, cook from scratch and do lots of weights, which seems a far better approach.

I think the other main popular approach is intermittent fasting.

Low calorie ready meals have always been like this, Weight Watchers meals are promoted as low fat/low calorie but they’re full of sugar and other crap to make up for it.

You’re better off eating non processed foods overall first a healthy diet.

If people ate just to fill themselves up there would be far fewer weight problems. Food is also about habit, comfort of hand to mouth, sensory experience of flavour and texture. If people who snack on crisps substitute them for these lower calorie options it will help their weight loss, so I do think they have their place. As long as they're focusing on the benefit being low calorie rather than high new nutrition, I don't think its disingenuous.

But they won’t.

Because yes it may be 90 calories for 21 pieces, but you probably need 80 to feel full. Then you’ll be hungry an hour later as they’re just full of crap.

Yeah low calorie is a farce. My dad reversed his diabetes with high fat low carb about 20 years ago and lost 50lb. Following a strict diet of meat, oily fish , animal fat and coconut oil and low carb veggies and fruit with nuts. He has a big fry up every morning. Sausage, bacon, eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes cooked in lard or bacon fat. Then salad and meat for lunch. Then a light supper of soup. He’s 82 , still up and down ladders doing his own DIY, walks 3-5 miles a day, cycles weekly, runs his own boat and still plays in a band AND he recently cured his own cancer using bulk animal wormer he purchased in India 🤷🏼‍♀️🫣😂. I genuinely couldn’t believe this but he actually did, was diagnosed with 3 finger nail size spots on his liver and went in for ablation 10 weeks later after taking his own treatment religiously and they had gone. Could have knocked me over with a feather.

my sister and I also thrive on a similar diet. Carbs go straight to fat on us, no matter what the calories say. But avoiding bread/sugar/pasta and upfs and sticking double cream in my coffee and eating the same as my dad sees us drop the weight in the blink of an eye. Is crazy.

You are right that they are rubbish nutritionally but at the same time, if you are craving some junk food, some of these are better that veyr high fat and high salt
options.

I eat sweet chilli rice crackers. They are very low sugar, low fat and low salt. Very high in refined carbs so I am not sure how they are so low sugar, but they are a good choice when you want junk food anyway.

I don't think it's disingenuous really but I do think it is misleading and cynical. However, rice cakes have always been marketed as "healthy", generally, for adults and babies, and I think they're riding on the back of the days when they truly didn't have much other than puffed rice in them. I remember when they were only available from health food shops, in fact.
I guess the onus is on us all to make sure we know what we're putting in our mouths. It's not as if the ingredients list isn't easily available. As someone said, if the choice is between a rice cake and a packet of crisps, we all know which we should choose if calorie counting is the important factor.

Out of interest, how many people have just had an advert for Dr Zava, "cheap weight loss pills and injections" pop up on their screen? I can't really articulate (just got out of bed) why this feels so wrong and feel Mumsnet should have a tighter grip on their advertising.

Cup of soup and mug shots! Yes they are low calorie but have nothing nutritional in them!!!

I’m sick of all of it but my main irk is the protein obsession. Why does everything have to have added protein now.

The thing is you can make a soup for similar calories!

Protein is important for some people but I do feel like it’s shoved down our throats

I use them sometimes just as 5128gap suggested, as a low calorie substitute for crisps.

I don’t eat 80 of them, in the same way that I don’t eat 80 bags of crisps.

But some of us HATE cooking with a passion and i would never ever make a soup....

Making soup is easy.

Why are you bothered? I would imagine that 21 rice cakes would definitely fill your tummy up and deter you from eating more, although I'm curious as to how something can be high in sugar and low in calories since sugar is so calorie dense. 10g sugar is 39 calories on it's own so they can't possibly be 10g sugar per portion. Just don't make them if you don't want them.

Because it’s a huge issue facing the nation. Obesity costs £12bn a year.

Ultimately, people can eat as 'healthily' as you like, but if their healthy, nutritious foods still contain more calories than they expend, they're not going to lose weight. So if weight loss is the goal - which it probably is for someone who is looking at calorie contents of their foods - the rice cakes are a perfectly good choice. If someone is overweight, they need to reduce their calorie intake. Someone can eat nothing but nutritious, non-processed meals cooked from scratch all day long but if they're eating too much of it and are obese, they are no more healthy than a slim, active person who eats low-cal rice cakes.

You say 'just have some yogurt and honey' but yogurt is typically high in saturated fat and honey is no more healthy than any other sugar is. And it will contain more calories than 90 cal rice cakes. The rice cakes, from your description, will also contain whole grains and fibre, which a yogurt will not. So, if someone is trying to lose weight or (eg) reduce their cholesterol, yogurt and honey isn't necessarily not a better choice. Yogurt isn't 'unhealthy' but neither are rice cakes. There are pros and cons to both of them.

90 cal rice cakes with 10g sugar are still healthier than your suggestion of 'just eat a chocolate bar' which will have more calories, more saturated fat, more sugar and zero fibre.

Fruit, eg an apple, would be around the same calories as the rice cakes but still contains sugar and isn't any more filling than rice cakes.

People can make their own food choices. If you don't want to eat the rice cakes, don't eat them. Ranting about other people eating them and assuming that everyone's health goals / needs / dietary requirements are the same as yours are. They're not.

Diet evangelism is tedious. Your way is ONE way. It's not the only way. Focus on your own food and stop flapping about other people's. You're projecting.

YANBU

I spent my entire life morbidly obese, living on wankery corn flakes, dry fucking rivita and fucking rice cakes.

I went keto, eating meat butter and eggs out the wazoo. Lost 45kg and kept it off for the last decade.

Low fat nearly gave me diabetes.

If you're worried about obesity, don't tell people to replace a 90 calorie wholegrain snack with yogurt or a chocolate bar.

It’s not a whole grain snack.

It’s all chemicals and UPF.

You could replace it with a 90 calorie piece of a chocolate bar.

You don’t need to stop eating crap to lose weight, just less of it.

They have their place imo. I've lost 12 stone in the last 5 years and replacing high calorie bad habits with low calorie bad habits as part of the path to cutting down on the bad habits was a massive part in it.

The rice cakes I munched on in the evening weren't about making me full or anything like that. Just as the large bag of crisps they replaced weren't about hunger. They were about comfort and habit.

I'm 37 in a few months and I am quite sick of not having the same metabolism I had when I was 18