Hey, The New Edition of the Carb & Calorie Counter Is Out!

Dana Carpender's New Carb & Calorie Counter, the revised and expanded edition, has just hit the stores, with over 200 pages of new stuff. Makes a great stocking stuffer for any low carbers on your list.

However, I want to make something perfectly clear:

Toward the front of the book, there is a section of fast food menu picks. Some of them are fairly atrocious -- corn dog bites at A&W, for example, or a bacon, egg and cheese taquito at Whataburger -- 24 grams net carb! Please realize: these are the lowest carb picks on the various restaurant menus at the time of writing, but that does not necessarily make them a good idea. My reaction to learning that the lowest carb food available at A&W is freakin' corn dogs, at 20 grams per serving, is "Geez, guess I'll be skipping A&W."

The point is, don't take the presence of a given food on that list to be my seal of approval. It is not.

Also, be aware that if you order off-menu you can get lower carb food at many fast food joints. Any hamburger place can give you a bunless hamburger or cheeseburger. Taco Bell can give you double chicken and hold the beans on a chicken taco salad. (It's up to you to leave the taco shell behind.) And Whataburger can surely give you the bacon, egg and cheese without the tortilla. Restaurants are in a service industry; if they're not willing to accommodate reasonable special requests, take your money elsewhere. It's rare for fast food restaurants to exist in isolation; if there's a McD's there's probably a BK or a Taco Bell or an Arby's nearby, too. Pick and choose! As always, what goes in your mouth is entirely up to you.