Response of 8 Sept 1997 of Lucie Zuiderwijk, Webmaster of the Dutch Montignac Site to the criticisms of the Dutch Consumer Union
As to the Dutch Consumer Union 'imbalances': they based their calculations
on a 2-days example menu in "Recipe's and Menu's" and because
in the Method Montignac no amounts or quantaties of food are recommended
they supposed a person would eat 1 - 2 slices of bread in the morning and
at lunch. (It is necessary to eat enough at a meal as to refrain from snacking
between meals.) This of course is less than a person would normally eat
and as the Consumer Union did not count with whole wheat bread, the result
is less carbohydrates and therefore a relative large amount of fats per
day.
As the method also advises to eat at least 10 out of 21 meals per week with
good carbohydrates, the choice of menu's the Consumer Union made, might
make a relative difference. A good calculations should be based on taking
a whole week of menus (21 meals).
Also the Consumer Union does not make any distiction between "good"
and bad" fats, a well recognized difference in the nutrition field.
The Consumer Union also bases their research on the presumption that the
only way to lose weight is by eating a calory-low diet (1500 calories when
a person uses 2000 calories a day). Research has shown that such a diet
adds to a yoyo-effect. People lose weight, stabilize and, even when sticking
to the low calory-diet, they gain weight again.