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Carbs. Simple or Complex. Natural or Not?

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Danny61

Member
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Ask me one on Nuclear Physics please!!! Can anyone point me to a simple way to understand and count carbs? I have tried to read up about it, but it just confuses me more and more. So please, if such a thing exists, where can I find an idiots guide to Carbs? I'm not really an idiot!!

Thanks

Danny
 
There is an excellent book called Carbs & Cals that you can buy from Amazon - also available as an app. This has photos of thousands of foods served up on a plate, with weight, number of grams of carbs, protein, fat and fibre, and number of calories. I used it daily when I was first starting, and still use it occasionally now.
 
some foods will have carb counts on the packets, others will require looking up and perhaps a notebook to record the percentage - then it is just a matter of putting the portion on the scale and adjusting to fit your requirements.
 
Danny61 said:
Thanks for that, great advice. However how do I know if something has carbs? I know about Potato's, rice, Pasta etc but what else? How can i tell?

Thanks again

Danny
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All packaged foods have nutritional info on them. There’ll usually be a carb count per 100g and per item. Ignore the ‘of which sugars’ bit because sugars are included in the carbs. For loose ingredients like vegetables use the carbs and cals book or app that @Bluetit1802 mentioned or the one I use called Nutracheck. Supermarket websites are also a good source of nutritional info.
 
Danny61 said:
Thanks for that, great advice. However how do I know if something has carbs? I know about Potato's, rice, Pasta etc but what else? How can i tell?
Click to expand...
If it's not written on the packet, I tend to start with a simple Google search "Carbs in ..."
Over time you will get to learn what has no carbs in such as steak or eggs or cheese and what has low carbs in such as berries.
And, if you are in the UK, you are looking for the total number of carbs.
(If you are in the US, total carbs includes fibre which is not digested so doesn't count.)
 
Danny61 said:
Thanks for that, great advice. However how do I know if something has carbs? I know about Potato's, rice, Pasta etc but what else? How can i tell?

Thanks again

Danny
Click to expand...

  1. Buy the book I mentioned in my earlier post.
  2. Look on the packets of food for the nutrition label. It will tell you how many carbs there are per 100g. Try to keep it less than 10g per 100g (10%) at most.
  3. Search on-line in the supermarket websites. Tesco and Sainsbury both list all the products they sell with full carb counts. Just Google the name of the food followed by Tesco. (or Sainsbury)
  4. Just about every plant food contains carbs, even lettuce believe it or not. However, some contain a lot and other not very much. Vegetables that grow beneath the ground usually have a lot more. Meat and fish (unless coated or smothered in sauce) don't contain any.
  5. Anything made with flour will have a lot of carbs, such as bread, pastry, batter etc.

EDIT - post crossed with @Rachox and @helensaramay
 
Simple, complex, high GI, Low GI, brown or white. Ignore all of that and use your glucometer to see which foods raise your blood glucose to unacceptable levels and which to reasonable levels.
 
Danny61 said:
Thanks for that, great advice. However how do I know if something has carbs? I know about Potato's, rice, Pasta etc but what else? How can i tell?

Thanks again

Danny
Click to expand...
Look on the back of the packet.. it should say number of grams of carbs per 100g (ignore the rubbish about sugars) I try to only buy stuff 5g per 100g or less others say 10g per 100g i.e. between 5 and 10% carbs. if you do that you won't go far wrong. At the moment I am only eating animal sourced food so meat, dairy, fish, cream, eggs and butter (with a bit of seasoning) so I don't need to check. If you fancy that give it a go.
 
Antje77 said:
When I'm in doubt, I just google <food item> carbs. Like "apple carbs", and usually google gives me a satisfactory answer.
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"nutritional value of (insert food, or food brand here.)" from good ol' Google too! :D
 
@Danny61

Download the app myfitnesspal on your phone. You can literally scan any food you eat or search it up in real time and get all of the nutritional information; it's highly accurate.

Avoid any processed foods that have carbohydrates, try to have natural foods such as sweet potatoes, brown rice, lentils, blueberries, etc :)
 
Brendon.Dean said:
Avoid any processed foods that have carbohydrates, try to have natural foods such as sweet potatoes, brown rice, lentils, blueberries, etc
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I would add that as @Danny61 is a T2 on Metformin only, he would be wise to test sweet potatoes, brown rice, lentils and blueberries before adding them to his regular menu, or he may find his blood sugar levels rising rather than improving. :)
 
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