Low carb and South Beach in the UK?

Actually two good friends of mine came over here from the US to start a low-carb distribution company and have been in meetings with all of the big grocery chains and the word is that all of the stores are planning on starting or expanding their low-carb sections very soon, so I think it's just a matter of time....

Anne, your friends are brilliant!!!!!  Yippeeeeee!!!!!!

Low carb kitkat and Rollos? Where do you get them!!? How low carb are they? I cant imagine. I dont do salads because raw veg has too many carbs for me. I eat lots of vegies but I boil the heck out of them to get alot of the carbs out. I dont recall a Superdrug here but Ill check the phone book. Thanks for the info!!
Pebs

Woolworths has them, though they are £1.39 for the rolos (Line the kind we have in the us, that size roll) and the kit kats were £.69 for half a bar, only 2 pieces.  So not the cheapest, but if you are really craving them.  I think they were either 2 or 3 net carbs ber serving. 

Great, thanks for the info. Im afraid that if I indulge on stuff like that it will eventually cause me to fall off the wagon. I prefer to torture myself the first few months.   But its nice to know I have a few treats to fall back on in case I go through severe PMS or mental meltdown.
Pebs

Pebbles - I'm not trying to be a jerk here (please believe that!) - but I don't know of any low-carb programs (and I've been doing it for 6 years, have read all the books and done a lot of research) that says boiling veggies gets the carbs out of them - ? - and in fact, they all agree that carbs are necessary for your health, just that they have to come from the right places, and that is veggies. Not trying to be judgmental or anything, just putting my 2p in that veggies are really important on a low-carb diet, especially salad veggies... and that while you'll lose weigh nixing all carbs (or nixing veggies) - it isn't healthy and in the long run really really hard to sustain. Atkins itself is actually centered around a big salad each day... so I'm curious to know where you heard that boiling veggies gets the carbs out, and where you ehard that veggie carbs are bad... are you doing induction maybe? Or are you doing your own plan and haven't read a book? PLEASE don't take all this the wrong way, I'm just such an advocate of low-carb being a really healthy lifestyle, that I worry when I see (what appears to be) people just thinking that a low carb count is ok - and not eating veggies etc....

I niggled and niggled about posting this and I hope it came out right... I struggle not to be preachy about this.  I don't know where you're coming from or what plan you're doing or what - so I guess I'm just asking for more info about the plan you are following - because I've never heard of such a thing.

I was wondering about the boiling veggies myself...so I am glad you asked! I just started South Beach and the only reason I felt this phase one was healthy was because of the veggie carbs allowed. (The atkins was just too stringent for me! I believe raw fruit to be one of the best foods available, but am willing to forego this for a few weeks while I am trying to get my carb cravings under control. Anyway...I wasn't willing to give up all fruit plus my daily salad...so South Beach is working well for me.)

Boiling veg to death will deplete them of most of their essential vitamins and minerals - and, as far as I'm also aware, not get rid of the carbs. I'm going to have to echo Marlespo,  I would seriously question where you got this information from. Can you elaborate? Are you nursing, too? Because those vitamins and minerals in your veg would be really important!

No I understand... and Im not offended at all. Thanks for your reply.
I havent read a single book on the subject. My brother lost a load of weight just cutting back on carbs. I actually read about boiling the vegetables on a bag of frozen broccoli or maybe it was cabbage. But it was definitely one of them.
Pebbles

I just found the following thru Google:

"Carbohydrates in vegetables will vary between individual pieces and depending on cooking method. As most vegetables are boiled they absorb more water so the carbohydrate content of each vegetable will lower compared to the same weight when raw. "

It didn't say how much they would drop though. I'm thinking it wouldn't be that significant but not sure...

Still, I'd be more worried about the vitamins and minerals.

But the carb content is lowered by weight because the veg absorbs water.  However, if you take a raw broccoli stalk worth maybe 4 carbs, and you boil the heck out of it, the broccoli stalk may end up weighing twice as much, effectively halving the carb count by weight, but if you eat the whole thing you're still going to get your 4 carbs.  It doesn't change the actual number of carbs in the vegetable, it just pumps the veg full of water.

I'd really suggest reading a book if you plan on continuing doing low carb, just becasue it really is easy to do it incorrectly and for it to be unhealthy - veggies are important, and eating sugar is bad - just because you only have 5 carbs of pure sugar doesn't mean it is ok, it affects vitamin absorption it raises insulin levels etc etc.... having a quick read of a book (or even the plan, if you just want a Hot To and not a Why) would be a great idea - and will help you in the long term by making it an easy lifestyle to have.

ALso - geally - you might think of reading Protein Power if you found the beginning Induction phase of Atkins too much - I never did induction but rather did PP. The weight came off slower but it was more flexible with fruits and things... and well, the plan just suited me better. I still lost 60 pounds using it though - and quickly compared to the non-loss I experienced on every other diet.

I've heard of the "boiling theory", too, but tholian is right.  Let's say you start with a piece of broccoli (or whatever) that weighs 20 grams and has 2 carbs, so 10% of the weight is carbs.  If you boil it, it'll weigh 40 grams and still have 2 carbs, but now only 5% of the weight is carbs.  You end up eating the same amount of carbs, just in a different proportion of the weight of the food.