Hi everyone,
I'm new to the zone so I have a few questions...

1. I'm assuming that if I were to use cooking or white wine in my cooking, I would count that as a carb and 4 ounces of it would equate to 1 carb block?
2. I just finished reading a week in the zone, which says that each fat block contains 3g of fat, but the website says each fat block contains 1.5g of fat; which is accurate?

Thanks!

The complete fat block is 3 grams. However, when you eat low fat protein it already typically contains 1.5 grams of fat which counts towards you total fat allowance. It means that you need to add only 1.5 grams of fat on top of that. Practically all the protein from the favourable list contains some fat and hence the addjustment. However, if you eat fat free protein, or such protein which contributes much less than 1.5 grams towards total fat block, you need to use extra fat in your food - so the TOTAL amount per block is 3 grams.

Wine is an unfavourable source of carb so limit the use of it, as a drink, to one block for meal. If I have a small glass I count it as 1 block, if I add a little of it to my food and cook with it - I do not count it at all actually, because the alkohol evaporates and what is left I do not count. Of course, I am talking about a little bit of it not the whole bottle added to your cooking.

Zoe, in addition, if your protein source already contains 3 or more grams of fat per protein block, you don't need to add the fat blocks. Salmon is a good example of this. Also, under these circumstances if you still wanted to add a little olive oil for taste it would be ok to do so. For the Zone, in regard to hormonal control, it's better to err on the side of a little too much fat than not enough, because dietary fat slows the entry of the carbhydrates into the bloodstream.