I am from Canada, and recently was in the States, I ventured to the grocery store before I came back and grabbed some things they don't sell here in Canada, which is actually quite a bit, and for WW all we have is the breads, some of those brownie and cake treats and Smart ones frozen dinners. No ice cream, no yogurt, no cheese, well the list is endless!! Anyways I purchased some WW bagels because they were a good price, but as I was checking the nutritional info, I was noticed that a WW bagel from America has 33 grams of carbohydrate, whereas a WW bagel I purchase here in Canada, only has 26 grams of carbohydrate, yet the calories, fat, and fibre are all the same. I am not sure what to think of this, other than it seems very strange to me? Just thought I'd fill you in on my finding.

I'm with you, I hate the fact that we get maybe 1/4 of the choices in pretty much everything than people in the US. People talk about stuff here I've never even heard of but would love to try, I guess maybe it is too expensive to make or ship up here? Maybe we don't have the population density to make it worthwhile? Or the masses of chemicals they use to make some of these products is deemed unacceptable by our regulatory authorities? I don't know... Anyway, maybe the difference in nutritional info is due to some regulatory authority policy. But it makes you wonder about actual the accuracy of nutritional labelling.

I am doing WW online but I went into a store last week to buy a points caculator. We were talking about all the food options they have in the States (I'm going to Florida in 2 weeks) and I mentioned that I noticed that the US english muffins are 1 point each and they are 2 points here. She said that they used fibres that Canadian food laws don't recognize. Also, I was doing Nutrisystem before I started WW and I 'complained' about all the food options we as Canadians did NOT get and was told that our standards did not allow certain foods into the country.

We are in Florida for 2 weeks and staying in a condo so we can make alot of our own meals. I can't wait to try cooking with all the different products out there!! It will make eating at home pretty limited and boring though. Sigh.

I am a Dutch WW'er and we also have VERY little ww products here AND we count points differently (no fibre!). Do you Canadians count fruit? We don't!

I wish it were standardised! It would sure make things easier to understand! If I want to cook from a WW cookbook (US) I'd have to recalculate everything!

Hi there! We absolutely count fruit points. We count fiber points, too, but if you get the WW cookbooks, each recipe has the calorie count, fat count and fiber count per serving. So it is easy to calculate the points from that using any online WW points calculator or your points calculator in your package. You won't have to add up every ingredient.
I live in a small town, too, and our "fat free" options are virtually nil, so I do adjust the recipes accordingly. It is easy to do, because you just for example add less cheese if you use regular cheese vice non-fat cheese.
I do the plan successfully without the use of frozen foods, fat-free ingredients, and processed items. I don't use egg substitute, fat-free anything, or frozen entrees. I cook everything from fresh ingredients, but eat out once a week, too. It takes a bit of planning, but it works well for me and is worth it in the end.
You might try WW online for access to the US/Cdn info and try counting from there. Not counting fruit may actually be adding unwanted points to your diet -- a fruit smoothie with strawberries, blueberries and a banana with a bit of milk can add up to 5 points. If you don't account for it, your butt will do it for you!!!
Kira