When a sugar-free cookie isn't a sugar-free cookie

February 13, 11:17 AMDenver Low Carb ExaminerLinda Duffy

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Sugar in foods is often disguised.

Parents try very hard to do the right thing. That is why it gets so frustrating when you have to point out that one of their efforts is a complete waste of time. One of the wasted efforts is when they try and introduce sugar-free products to their children and an effort to fight obesity. Often times sugar-free doesn't really mean anything and the sugar topic can set off some heated debates.

After someone posted on a forum that sugar made no behavior difference in children and she had seen this on a cable special, I had to chime in. I asked if the group of kids who allegedly got "no sugar" were actually sugar-free, and that without knowing the composition of the food, I seriously doubted the report. Of course, one of those debate ensued.

During the course of the discussion, I pointed out that a regular cookie contains flour. Flour rapidly breaks down into sugar. A sugar-free cookie and a sugar filled cookie are not that different unless you are using almond meal instead of wheat flour as the main ingredient.

For purposes of this debate and to continue to uphold my status as a total smarty-pants-know-it-all, I decided to do a little comparison using www.fitday.com and immediately hit pay dirt.

• An Archway oatmeal cookie made with sugar has 17g of carbohydrates.
• A sugar-free Archway oatmeal cookie has 16.1g of carbohydrates.

If you are giving one kid the sugar-free cookie and one kid the sugar-filled cookie, there is virtually NO DIFFERENCE between the two. They are BOTH loading their bodies with sugar...only the mom feeding her kid the sugar-free cookie is deluding herself that her kid is NOT getting sugar.

This cookie example is why it is so important to look at the total carbohydrate amount of any food and not just focus on whether or not it has sugar as one of the ingredients. For every 50g of carbohydrates you ingest regardless of the source, it is the equivalent of 1/4 cup of sugar. Sugar in your food can come in the form of flours, grains or other starches. The mainstream doesn't understand this, and I don't know if I have time to personally tell each and every well-meaning mom that the reason their kid is still bouncing off the walls is the expensive organic not-so-sugar-free food they have been feeding them.