Low Carb Sweet Pickles!

I was trolling through the local grocier the other day (Krogers) and I beheld something wonderful. No Sugar Added Pickles from the Mount Olive Pickle Company!

I flat-out love pickles! I have cut down on them seriously since starting low carb. First I was told they were OK to eat - other than the sweet varieties. So I ate dills and such. Till the high sodium levels really made me retain water and made my ankles and calves swell. I have a circulatory problem that is fairly well exaccerbated by salt. And the sweet pickles had too much sugar. ARGH!

One of the things that is a bit frustrating when you start out on the low carb way of eating is learning what you can't eat. No bread. No pasta. No white potatoes. No rice. No sweets. No blah blah blah.... ad infinitum. I will interject here that successful folks at the low carb life that I have observed seem to focus on what they CAN have rather than what they CANNOT HAVE and are missing. Anyhow, it is such a pleasure to learn when there are low carb alternatives of what has been on the VERBOTEN list for awhile - and to find that you can now eat these restricted forbidden food items once again!

I tend to do so in moderation. Others go for the gusto and do low carb breads, pancakes, snacks, candy and treats. I ease into these kinds of things to ensure that I don't blow it and go off track. But still it is way cool to have something re-introduced as an option in your diet, even sparingly.

The Mount Olive Pickle Company is now making no-sugar pickles sweetened with Splenda! They rock! They are awesome. Low carb counts. Great taste! I have always liked sweet pickles and one of my favorites is the "Bread and Butter" Pickles. Now I can eat them again. A serving of six pickles chips is less than one gram of carbs and zero calories! WOW!

I am never comfortable with something that reads "less than 1g" on the nutrition label - carbohydrates row. And zero calories! After all, it could be 0.000001 grams or 0.999999 grams of carbs. My guestimate of human nature is that because they said six chips is less than one gram it is probably closer to 0.9999999 grams. Or else you would think they would say something like "100 chips, less than one gram" on the label.

But having said that, it is still nice to have some sweetness in the pickle variety. If you, like me, also enjoy pickles, you can now look for the No Sugar Added Mount Olive Pickle products on the shelves at the grocier near you! The sodium levels listed for the same six chips was high (160 mg, I think, but could be wrong) - so sodium-sensitive folks need to check and watch these levels when they make their food choices!

I am not a compensated endorser for this or any other pickle company. Or any other company for that matter. And I don't plan to be. I have a real full time job, and this blogging is just a hobby for me - to keep myself psyched about low carb living. If I get excited about a product I may share it here or I may not. Feel free to buy sugar free pickles with recless abandon without a worry that I will see a nickle of it. My opinions are my own and may be subject to change, full of misinformation, and jaded by my own cynical outlook and by my own life experience. Your milage may vary. I am not a nutritionist, dietician, doctor, psychologist, psychiatrist, or mult-gazzillionaire and I do not play one on TV.