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A word of caution - Tesco nutritional panels

DavidGrahamJones

DavidGrahamJones

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Amendment: I can do sums, I should have double checked my calculations. I'm probably looking to hard for something simple to explain spikes.


I've been eating a lot of vegetables lately and my favourite is to get Tesco Mediterranean Roasting Vegetables because they're easy to roast, no mess etc etc.

My BG hasn't been following any sort of pattern for a while except when I went very low calorie for 6 weeks and everything was fine for a while.

I've been relying on the Nutrition panel for carb content (and calories) and also trying to work out what causes spikes like the one last night when I ate 2/3 of a tray for my dinner at approximately 19:30. The peak is just under 15 and in theory I'd eaten about 18 gms of carb. I haven't quite got to the bottom of it but my concern is with the validity of the nutrition panel on the Mediterranean Roasting Vegetables.

In my effort to discover what exactly is going on, I have weighed the individual constituents of one of the trays I have in the fridge. Admittedly I'm making an assumption that most trays will be very similar unless the packaging machine has thrown a wobbly. The total weight agrees so I'm not far off the mark.

However, when I look at the four ingredients and calculate the carb content it comes to 69 gms of carb for the whole tray so I'd actually eaten 46 gms of carb, rather than 18 gms.

I'm not sure if I can explain the spike but I'm much more concerned with the inaccuracy of the nutrition panel. Maybe I should chill and not worry except I want to avoid Gliclazide and what happened when I was prescribed Gliclazide some years ago i.e. I stopped losing weight and gained 10 + kgs.

31082017FSLibreData.jpg

I had the other 1/3 of the tray for breakfast, yes it probably is weird, but I was going to skip breakfast and I try to avoid leftovers accumulating in the fridge because I hate waste, as it invariably stays there for ages, unless I eat it (HID believes eating leftovers is below her station) LOL. Similar peak after 08:30 breakfast.

01092017FSLibreData.jpg

Anyway, main point is the potential inaccuracies in the nutrition panels, carbs were certainly 3 times what they say, I haven't worried about the rest of it. Any comments on peaks welcome, but there's other things going on like the incredible back ache I've had for weeks.
 
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Hi @DavidGrahamJones ,

It certainly looks like you "took one for the team" on this one..

If I was going to say anything regarding your BS profile on the graph. From my own insulin user perspective.
& If I'm reading it correctly?
The "climb" looks like the profile after treating a hypo with 3 jelly babies? (Though I wouldn't do 3.)

Then I saw the "of which are sugars" on the Tesco NV.. https://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/default.aspx?id=268343137
 
The words "deliciously sweet" would put me off.

It looks to me like the entry for sugars is not "of which sugars" but is in addition to the carbs, making it rather carb heavy.

Irrespective of this, red onion spikes me a lot.
 
DavidGrahamJones said:
I've been eating a lot of vegetables lately and my favourite is to get Tesco Mediterranean Roasting Vegetables because they're easy to roast, no mess etc etc.

My BG hasn't been following any sort of pattern for a while except when I went very low calorie for 6 weeks and everything was fine for a while.

I've been relying on the Nutrition panel for carb content (and calories) and also trying to work out what causes spikes like the one last night when I ate 2/3 of a tray for my dinner at approximately 19:30. The peak is just under 15 and in theory I'd eaten about 18 gms of carb. I haven't quite got to the bottom of it but my concern is with the validity of the nutrition panel on the Mediterranean Roasting Vegetables.

In my effort to discover what exactly is going on, I have weighed the individual constituents of one of the trays I have in the fridge. Admittedly I'm making an assumption that most trays will be very similar unless the packaging machine has thrown a wobbly. The total weight agrees so I'm not far off the mark.

However, when I look at the four ingredients and calculate the carb content it comes to 69 gms of carb for the whole tray so I'd actually eaten 46 gms of carb, rather than 18 gms.

I'm not sure if I can explain the spike but I'm much more concerned with the inaccuracy of the nutrition panel. Maybe I should chill and not worry except I want to avoid Gliclazide and what happened when I was prescribed Gliclazide some years ago i.e. I stopped losing weight and gained 10 + kgs.

View attachment 23707

I had the other 1/3 of the tray for breakfast, yes it probably is weird, but I was going to skip breakfast and I try to avoid leftovers accumulating in the fridge because I hate waste, as it invariably stays there for ages, unless I eat it (HID believes eating leftovers is below her station) LOL. Similar peak after 08:30 breakfast.

View attachment 23708

Anyway, main point is the potential inaccuracies in the nutrition panels, carbs were certainly 3 times what they say, I haven't worried about the rest of it. Any comments on peaks welcome, but there's other things going on like the incredible back ache I've had for weeks.
Click to expand...
When you calculated your separate ingredients could you walk me through your workings out?
 
Bluetit1802 said:
The words "deliciously sweet" would put me off.

It looks to me like the entry for sugars is not "of which sugars" but is in addition to the carbs, making it rather carb heavy.

Irrespective of this, red onion spikes me a lot.
Click to expand...

In terms of a relatively quick acting hypo treatment in a handy to carry half pack of veg.. "Every little helps!" :D
 
It comes down to trust. Thanks for the heads up, I may never have questioned the pack info had I not seen your post. I am not a great lover of frozen foods but they are great for convenience.
 
Engineer88 said:
When you calculated your separate ingredients could you walk me through your workings out?
Click to expand...

Thanks for asking me to do that, looks like my sums were pretty awful. Apologies to Tesco and fellow forum members. I must have calculated onions without clearing peppers or something equally silly. I think I'm just getting tired, just when my BG was straightening out at an acceptable level, it goes all over the place again.

I think I'm also get tired of having doctors who can't tell me why I don't lose weight when I eat so little. I did follow my GP's advice in January 2016 and ate more, big mistake, the the stupid nurse looks at me when as if it's my fault.

I'll add a note to first post. Sorry.
 
DavidGrahamJones said:
That's the bit that threw the figures out more than the other three, by a lot.
Click to expand...
Maybe you could pick the onions out if they're chunky. Cooke veg raises the carb content as well.
I'm not sure how you feel about leftovers but I used to roast a huge pan of chopped misc veg and very week and reheat ( or cold) through a few days.

Peppers mushroom zuchhini green beans broc cauliflower etc. It was a lot easier than cooking and chopping everyday. Or I'd just chop tons all at one time and grab a handful and steam as needed
 
Tesco, Morrisons, Sainsbury's and waitrose are all pretty much in agreement about 10 or 11 gm of carbs per half pack.

So if one is wrong they all are.
 
DavidGrahamJones said:
Thanks for asking me to do that, looks like my sums were pretty awful. Apologies to Tesco and fellow forum members. I must have calculated onions without clearing peppers or something equally silly. I think I'm just getting tired, just when my BG was straightening out at an acceptable level, it goes all over the place again.

I think I'm also get tired of having doctors who can't tell me why I don't lose weight when I eat so little. I did follow my GP's advice in January 2016 and ate more, big mistake, the the stupid nurse looks at me when as if it's my fault.

I'll add a note to first post. Sorry.
Click to expand...

I didn't mean to make you question yourself I just wondered if you had considered cooked weight vs not etc :)
 
I find that roasted veg - especially red peppers REALLY spike me. They also taste very sweet. Had to give the red peppers up.
 
Not sure if they are the same thing as they are in a 800g pack rather than a tray but I have not eaten the Tesco Mediterranean Vegetables in my freezer as I noticed they said 9.2% carbs. I would probably eat half a pack as I like large portions of veg which comes to 36.8g carbs which too much for me. Not sure what bumps up the carbs as I haven't done a @DavidGrahamJones type calculation but a lot of the mix is courgette and 400g of courgette would only be about 10g carbs.
 
Kristin251 said:
I'm not sure how you feel about leftovers
Click to expand...

Not a problem. Seems my sums aren't so good today either. Not sure how I managed that, mind you, I had to cut a 45 degree angle in some skirt board the other day. Measure twice and cut once wasn't the problem, just getting the thing the right way up and the right way round. The brain seems to be struggling a bit, brain fog at it's worse.
 
Mr_Pot said:
Not sure what bumps up the carbs as I haven't done a @DavidGrahamJones type calculation but a lot of the mix is courgette and 400g of courgette would only be about 10g carbs.
Click to expand...

The onion is 9gm per 100gm but I can't do sums, not this one anyway, I was way out.The courgette is surprisingly good on the carbs front, I might try growing my own. The kids (under 11 years old) across the road grow vegetables and gave me a huge courgette. Three meals for two of us.
 
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