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baked beans - help with carb counting please...

C

carb-counting-mum

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Hi,

Dietician told me that I only had to count the sugar carbs in baked beans, so not to take the total carbs (as so slow releasing it doesn't really affect blood sugars)
My daughter had some (reduced sugar) baked beans on toast. 200g baked beans - total carbs : 24g (of which sugars 7g). I only counted the 7g carbs as instructed. Her post-meal reading however was higher than I expected (12.2). I'm now thinking it may have been the beans? Especially reading online about others counting the total carb contents, rather than just the sugar carbs?
Of course the high reading may just be a fluke, but just wondering what other people's experience with bakes beans are?
 
I count total carbs as with everything else. It works with me fine but I do limit myself to about 15g when I have them on wholemeal toast. No spikes though and no lows either a they work well.
 
I have always counted the total carbs as well since being diagnosed in the 60's so I would have counted 24g as being correct for the insulin dose and not the 7g.
 
Total carbs...
 
Total carbs is always the starting point, but then the GI factor comes in when some carbs are more slow releasing than others. This is what the dietician will have been getting at, I think.
 
During the DAFNE course I did a few months back. I got told to take half the total amount of carbs for baked beans. I don't particularly understand why, but it seems to be working for me.


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Many thanks, the replies have been really helpful. I will be more careful with baked beans from now on. Will count half of total carbs and see how that goes.
 
Definitely total carbs. To counteract the GI of foods, inject either 20 mins before eating (high GI) or immediately before (low GI). I lived on a diet of beans for a few months and injected immediately before.
 
Yes, I will be much more careful from now on when it comes to baked beans. Obviously if she only had a few beans it might not have been such an issue, but she had quite a lot last night and I feel I should have counted the total carb amount (or half at least). The dietician gave the same advice about all other vegetables too (incl. sweetcorn), also nuts. To just ignore the carbs in those. I was a little sceptical (especially about the sweetcorn and the baked beans) but I thought she knew best. Hmmm. I think it's a constant balancing act between listening to the experts' advice and educating (double checking?) yourself on certain issues. Above all, I think just to closely watch how foods affect my daughter is important, that's why I test her quite often.

Interesting point you make SamJB, about the timing of the insuline. Up till now I have only delayed her insuline if she was on the low side (so I'd give it after a meal). All other times it is just before a meal, or maybe (max. of) 5 minutes before. Hadn't really thought how low or high GI foods may come into play with insuline requirements.

I have a LOT to learn about this whole diabetes business! I'm still a newbie though, thats my excuse!
 
You've hit the nail on the head. Its all about seeing what works and what doesn't. Some things work for some people, some things dont. I know I need to inject for sweetcorn. In fact, anything with carbs in needs insulin.

Also, with insulin timing, you can usually avoid spikes if you get the timing right. Going low GI is definitely the way forward on that front, or eating small quantities of high GI foods.
 
Cheers. Yes, I am definitely trying to avoid spikes. Another reason for testing quite frequently. If I only tested pre-meals I would be blissfully unaware of any spikes, as often these are quite short-lived and she will usually be back within normal range before her next meal. Am experimenting with low GI foods/restricting high GI food.
Have found out dried fruit sends my daughter really high, really quickly! She had 15g carbs of raisins the other day, went up to nearly 20 mmol/L within a very short time, before plummeting right down again - she was 5.0 within the hour. I think I need to be a bit bolder, a little more intuitive - so learning about what works for my daughter, rather than blindly following a rigid protocol.
Good to know you and others seem to have cracked it and are confident about their own diet/insuline regime. Gives me hope!
 
Hi

Baked beans on their own probably wouldnt raise my bg levels too much but that would be if I wash away the orange, sugary muck that's put in the cans fist before I eat them.

Sweetcorn makes my bg go high. Raisins - sky high very quickly (in fact I could probably use them to deal with the odd feeling low come to think of it). Pineapple doesnt affect me very much, neither does banana which is strange because most people find bananas make them go high..... so everything is very much trial and error....and until you know, I would inject for total carbs and then find out 2hrs later whether the dose was correct or whether I wouldl need to eat a small amount of carb to bring bg levels back up to being ok again. Its easy to correct low bg levels with glucose or carb but its harder and takes far longer to correct high bg levels with insulin (that's if you dont want to manipulate your correction factor to make the drop quicker).........
 
For baked beans i only count the of sugars part and that works fine for my daughter.
Veg i don't count at all, they are so high in fibre they tend to go through quickly.
i would count parsnips but she doesn't like them, carrots i only count if they've been roasted.

iHs - i give her a small box of raisins (10g) carbs to treat a hypo sometimes instead of glucotabs
 
the "total carbs" is the important number. HCP still believe in Slow carbs, but I don't. Having taught science for MANY years and often demonstrated the conversion of starch to glucose by enzymes, I can say with certainty, that if the class isn't well organised, all the starch will have gone by the time they make their first test. [ just a few minutes!]
For me Baked beans have become a forbidden food. I can't handle them at all.
Hana
 
Hey there!

Yep, I jab for all carbs. Beans are a tough one - they seem to convert quite quickly to glucose for me, but they also seem to hang around a long time keeping my BG slightly higher than normal. I make sure I cover the carb in veg as well. I don't know where these HCPs get the idea you don't need to jab for some carbs - there's nothing special about carbs in 'healthy' food, they still convert to glucose and affect your BG, so they still need insulin.

As Sam said, jabbing earlier for some foods and later for others works well, but that's something you need to get used to by trial and error and I guess that's easier for those of us experimenting on ourselves than on our kids. I think the best advice is to keep carb to small portions so that it needs small doses of rapid acting. That way all your mistakes will be small mistakes and easily corrected.

Take care

Smidge
 
HCP still believe in Slow carbs, but I don't.
Click to expand...
And what do you think the glycemic index measures then? Demonstrating starch turning quickly to glucose a dish is very well, but actually eating food is a considerably more complex process.

I don't know where these HCPs get the idea you don't need to jab for some carbs - there's nothing special about carbs in 'healthy' food, they still convert to glucose and affect your BG, so they still need insulin.
Click to expand...
Because "carbs eaten = BG increase" is a lie-to-children, a heuristic/simplified model that works well enough most of the time but isn't actually true.
 
Hello dear,
Yes, we were told to count total carbs. We could ignore veg (peas, carrots, sweetcorn the exception - they are higher in carbs, though not so much, anything tasting sweet essentially has carbs). Ignore meat but told to look at processed meats which may have some eg some sausages you may see have 10g carb per sausage - we had some Sains good for you range ones yesterday (lower fat) which were 9.5g each. The better quality ones probably don't have much additives, but higher in fat. I've found foods that have a higher fat content caused hypo readings 2h later since fat slows down absoption, so the spike probably comes later. I was also told that any snacks taken within 1-1.5 hrs of a meal can have the carb content added on to that meal calculation. Hope you are well. Haven't looked at forum for a couple of days so catching up!!
Take care, Tracy
 
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