Going Nuts Over Fresh Low-Carb Donuts

Yes, Virginia, you can now have donuts on your low-carb lifestyle

People who start livin' la vida low-carb generally have to make a choice--permanently change their old eating habits away from the high-carb foods that have long plagued their weight and health or find some low-carb alternatives that will fulfill and satisfy their desires. If you want to be successful with your low-carb plan, then there's no negotiating this point.

But what if that food you used to love before you started low-carbin' it was the worst possible food you can eat on a low-carb diet--DONUTS! Yeppers, that's quite a conundrum to overcome because up until now there hasn't been anything even remotely close to the authentic taste of real donuts for people who are livin' la vida low-carb.

Thankfully, though, all of that has changed and now there is! It's called Dixie Carb Counters Bakery Style Donut Mix made by our friends at Dixie Diner. I will admit to you that I was quite skeptical about making these donuts the first time I did it because I really didn't think they would taste very good at all based on some of the other so-called "donut" products for low-carbers in the past. Somebody should slap me with a wet noodle for doubting--these low-carb donuts are AWESOME, baby!


The Dixie Diner low-carb donuts are baked in a special pan, not fried

You can pick your favorite flavored--either chocolate, glazed, or powdered--donut mix, stir in a little butter and heavy cream, pour the batter in your donut pan, and wait for the tintillating and familiar aroma to fill your kitchen in about 15 minutes for that one-of-a-kind donut taste you have always known and loved. I really wouldn't have believed it if I didn't try them for myself.

With 8g fiber, 6g protein, and only 2g net carbs per donut, what a delightful treat to have every once in a while without sacrificing your low-carb plan. This mix does not contain any sugar alcohols and cooks up 6 hot and delicious low-carb donuts for you and your family to enjoy. There is an optional donut holes recipe included on the back of the packaging as well.

If you don't eat all of the donuts you make, then they will stay fresh in your freezer for you to heat up and eat as a healthy low-carb snack later on. Do you know what I did to spruce up my low-carb donuts even more? Mr. Smarty Pants here thought about donuts from his childhood and remembered, "Oh yeah, how about a JELLY donut?!" So, I took some of my Splenda-sweetened Smucker's jelly and scooped a dab of it in the middle of one of the powdered donuts for my own homemade low-carb jelly donut. SWEET...LITERALLY! :) But NOT with sugar and that's way cool!

Try the Dixie Carb Counters Bakery Style Donut Mix for yourself and see if you agree with me that it's the best donut you've ever had on a low-carb diet hands down! Mmmm mmmm!

Smuckers Axes Aspartame, Switches To Splenda

Smuckers Sugar-Free Jam is now made with Splenda

I went out shopping last night to pick up a few groceries since my wife was in the mood for some raw cauliflower, broccoli and carrots with ranch dipping sauce. Mmmm, a low-carb dieter's delight for a meal since all of those veggies are EXCELLENT when you are livin' la vida low-carb. Since that is what Christine was craving, I was happy to take care of making sure my beautiful darling got what she wanted. Ain't I such a good hubby-wubby?!

I, on the other hand, also enjoyed a delicious and healthy low-carb dinner: a barbecued rotisserie chicken! Mmmm, that bad boy was off-the-chain! Oh, sorry, that means it was good in the vernacular of kids these days. Yep yep!

Anyways, as I was going up and down the aisles looking for any new products that may have come out appropriate for the low-carb lifestyle, I caught something out of the corner of my eye that was way down on the bottom shelf of the jellies and jams section. What was it that I saw? THE SPLENDA LOGO!


I look for the "Sweetened With Splenda Brand" all the time

When I bent down to pick up this glorious "new" product to see what it was featuring Splenda, imagine my surprise when I saw the product was made by Smuckers. Yep, the same Smuckers jams, jellies and preserves that have long been made with the artificial sweetener Nutrasweet or aspartame (my new name for it is nasty-tame)!

See for yourself the old packaging:


Nutrasweet pervaded the entire Smuckers line of products...until now!

Now it seems the manufacturers of Smuckers have been listening to the complaints we have been making about the questionable-for-your-health Nutrasweet even as other companies are REMOVING Splenda from their products! This is especially a BIG concern of mine in the soft drink industry where all the marketing dollars are going to support aspartame-infested products like this one while very little support has been given to superb Splenda-sweetened products such as this.

Hooray for Smuckers!!! FINALLY, somebody is listening!!!

The store I shopped at had four flavors available: Apricot Preserves, Strawberry Preserves, Seedless Blackberry Jam, and Concord Grape Jam. Each teaspoon serving size has just 50 calories and 5g carbohydrates (ZERO sugar!). They are made with REAL fruit which only add a trivial amount of natural sugars rather than the gobs of man-made sugar (aka high-fructose corn syrup) generally poured into most jams and jellies these days. These Smuckers jellies are an EXCELLENT product for diabetics and low-carbers alike to use as part of their healthy lifestyles.

I was so excited about trying these Smuckers jams for myself, I decided to dab some on a ZERO carb cinnamon bagel available from Viva Low-Carb along with some real full-fat Philadelphia-brand cream cheese.

Holy cow, look how good this breakfast I had turned out:


A bagel with cream cheese and jelly with about 5g carbs

As gorgeous as it looked, the taste was even more phenomenal! I cut the bagel in half and toasted it in my toaster for about a minute. Then spread a layer of cream cheese and then added the Smuckers. Oh...my...goodness!!! That was an amazing experience and I was thrilled to be able to taste Smuckers jams again without all the nasty-tame in it. YEAH!

My only advice to you if you find a "Sweeted With Splenda" logo on the front of a product is to check the ingredients list on the back. If sucralose or Splenda is not the primary or only sweetener listen, then you might want to put it back. Some companies (not Smuckers, thank God!) put substances like stomach-busting sugar alcohols such as maltitol as their top sweetening agent while sucralose is near the bottom of the ingredients.

What is most sickening is how they so proudly display that Splenda logo like it means something. To me, that is nothing mroe than just false advertising and food companies should be compelled to stop deceiving the public! We should demand truth in labeling on sugar-free products so that others don't fall prey to this marketing gimmick!

The sugar-free companies STILL need a wake-up call and I'm so glad to see a leading industry name like Smuckers serving as an example for adding Splenda to their jams and jellies now. I hope they continue to extend this to their other product lines, such as the hot fudge topping, caramel topping, etc. as long as they avoid the maltitol. We will hope for the best and see.

Are there any other companies ready to axe the aspartame, too? If you are a company that has products that contain Splenda or if you run across a product that has not previously been sweetened with Splenda and would like for me to highlight it here, then please e-mail me this information. I want to share with my fellow low-carbers these excellent options for them to use while they are livin' la vida low-carb.