This is my first post, I have a question about the product benefiber and its POSSIBLE effect on points. Soooo, my question is - if I am eating a low fiber food, but I add benefiber to the recipe when I am preparing the dish - does that effect the point count?
W/W does not allow that. It is cheating and you can only count up to 4 gms of fiber plus you'd add the calories into the item you had and it pretty doesn't help anyway.
I was coming here to ask the same question, SayaGwen! (I frequent another board).
Cheating? Really... that's a pretty strong word for adding FIBER to my diet. It's not like I'm adding dark chocolate and wanting it for zero points.
I guess I wonder why WW doesn't allow it? It does make a small difference. If I add fiber to my light Yoplait Yogurt, it changes it from a 2 point breakfast item to a 1 point item. I don't see how this is different from when the manufacturer adds it. If you think Western Bagels are born with that much fiber...
I spoke with my leader this weekend and got a different answer.
You can add Benefiber to any product for up to 4 grams of fiber. Anything above 4 (like in any other manufactured product) is disregarded. So if you want to add it to ice cream for 4 grams of fiber, you can. Not sure HOW you would do that, but more power to you.
For those geeks out there, there's some great formulas and explanations on the points system on Wikipedia. Here's a snippet that explains a bit more about the limit of 4 grams of fiber,
An early version of the POINTS system did not limit the fiber "credit" to four grams. Another variation, which may be explained by rounding, is that the "POINTSfinder" manual calculator distributed at Weight Watchers meetings does not reach a POINTS value of 2 until after 70 calories have been reached, rather than 50 as the formula would indicate. As a result, point boundaries are 20 calories (or 4.8 fat grams) higher than might be expected. Though the patent mentions possibly using 70 rather than 50 as the single point baseline, that method is said to be intended for use by dieters who do not use fiber as a "point enhancer" (reducer).
No offense but the WW website (etools, under the recipes area) also offers recipes specifically with Benefiber added to them. It looks like they're comfortable endorsing the use of Benefiber now.
If you have etools, you can see one of the Benefiber recipes (Banana Frozen Yogurt Pie) here.
If you are comfortable adding it to something that isn't a recipe (see in the recipes they add the calories/fat/fiber for all ingredients) then do it but officially (and yes I have seen it in the leaders manual) and several leaders who actually post over at the W/W site have said W/W does not OFFICIALLY allow you to do.
Again it is all in what you are comfortable doing. I will still go by what the leader's manual states and it says you cannot add it to things like ice cream, yogurt to bring down points.
Benefiber & Weight Watcher's Points
