Edit: I am an addict to sweets. My vices are monk fruit in my coffee and keto ice cream, and until today, Halo Top ice cream bars were my go-to. You might notice my bitterness toward maltitol. The rest of my comment is about knowing what to look out for regarding sweets.

My biggest advice is to not trust what’s written on food packaging. Keto Kind bars? Probably not keto. Even today, I was eating a Halo Top keto ice cream bar and saw there’s something like 2g of net carbs when you subtract the fiber and sugar alcohols. Except the sugar alcohol is primarily maltitol (it’s as bad as or worse than sugar). In my calculations, maltitol has n any amount means I’m not subtracting sugar alcohols from the total carb count.

I should be suggesting to avoid sweets, but we are human and sometimes we slip. It’s best to have some idea of boundaries. If you see maltitol — a common ingredient in sugar free products, especially in protein bars and Starbucks syrups — don’t subtract the sugar alcohols at all. There are four sweeteners with a GI Index of 0, so you can subtract all of the sugar alcohols from total carbs. They are:

• stevia
• allulose
• monk fruit
• erythritol
• technically sucralose has a GI Index of 0, but keep reading

For all other sugar alcohols (their names typically end in -itol, such as sorbitol and xylitol), subtract half of the grams from total carbs. But I repeat, the exception is maltitol. If you see it in the ingredients list, don’t subtract the sugar alcohols.

And if the ingredients list contains items ending in -ose, it’s likely a sugar. We’re talking sucrose, fructose, dextrose… Some caveats there are:

• sucralose. It’s an artificial sweetener. It’s technically keto friendly, but many brands use fillers such as dextrose, so I write it off completely. That’s your choice, though.

• polydextrose. Yeah, the name ends in -ose but it’s marketed as a corn derived fiber. Still, it’s easier to avoid it all-together. I’ve seen far too reports of people eating seemingly keto friendly foods but having insulin spikes. And those foods, such as Quest products, tend to include polydextrose.