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Type 1 Carb counting

Benbaclat

Member
Messages
21
Location
Bradford, England
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Dislikes
Narrow minded arrogant people. Bradford . Rainy days
Hi, is it just me or could something not be done about packaging on foods to help the many people like myself who need to know how many carbs are in the food I'm eating?
I mean most companies are good and tell me how many carbs are in , for example, a slice of bread, and other companies just tell you how many carbs are in 100g!
It doesn't help me in the slightest to know the latter!
 
hi there @Benbaclat
I always use my digital scales at home to weigh foods that only give grams of carb per 100gram.
( pain in the **** I know )
 
@Benbaclat. As people who need to carb count, we are a very small minority of the population.
It's just an added downside of diabetes, annoying, but ultimately our problem.
 
Hey, @himtoo
I know it is a pain in the **** weighing food out , on top of everything else involved with managing your blood sugars well. But isn't there anything that has been suggested or tried to make some kind of ruling that all companies must give carbs amounts per item or serving, rather than per 100g?
If not , then why don't we do something? The diabetes crew is millions strong!!
 
@Benbaclat. Totally agree carb points would be great on food labelling for us diabetics.
But on a grander scale think humanity would be served better if a labelling system that highlighted the fact that some foods are absolutely sh*t for everyone would be better.
 
I wish I could wave a wand and make it all happen !!
as @therower says -- actually we are a small minority in the big world of nutrition.
all you have to do is look at the "red , amber , green " -- labelling -- that isn't aimed at us type 1's that carb count -- it is aimed at lowering sugar , fat , and calories for the general population.

I could honestly cry my eyes out in sympathy for what you go through every day -- we don't have an easy ride -- but just know you have all of us on here that know what you do every day and we are all with you.
hugs [[[hugs]]]
 
Doesn't help with sliced bread (although, you soon get to remember how many carbs in a slice if you eat it often enough) but I like the approximation that there are about 10g carbs per inch of a baguette.
Would be nice if there were more approximations like this.

Alternatively, there's carbs and cals .... although the app drive me potty and I was famished before I'd found half the things on my plate.
 
Hey there, @therower
You sound like a nice guy, but......Let's try make life easier for the daily struggle us people of diabetes go through!
Surely we can start a petition or something. It can't be that much of a big deal for somebody at the company t work out some numbers and put a little extra ink on their packaging telling us the carbs per item/serving, can it? Not everybody has or can afford digital scales!
Let's do something!
We are many!
 

Only have to go back 20 years and very little food packaging had the nutritional values included, now nearly all foods do or you can find the carb value on-line.

It's simple to work out the carb value of your food going by the 100g weight, just divide your portion weight by 100 then multiple it by the carb value of the food per 100g.

Say for example oats have 67g of carb per 100g and your portion weighs 40g, 40g divided by 100 equals 0.4 multiplied by 67 (the carb value per 100g) comes to 26.8, so your 40g portion of oats has 26.8g of carbs.
 
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Hey @Benbaclat. Nice guy?????????
I'm totally with you, anything to acknowledge and make our daily struggles easier would be fantastic.
I'm sadly a realist, to give information on packaging that isn't relevant to maybe 95% of the population isn't going to happen.
I work in the printing industry, one extra colour with one extra line of information costs money.
I'm with you but sadly the non-diabetics are not.
 
Hey @ therower! Don't take offence,
you do sound like a nice guy, lol. But has nobody even tried anything?
They told Mohammed Ali he would never be a champ, did he just agree and walk away? No siree!
 
Hi. I have never weighed my food. You soon get used to how many carbs are in a typical portion size of food and as my DN once said 'just eye-ball it' if you don't know. My guesses are usually pretty good.
 
@Benbaclat . Really admire your approach. Go for it and prove me wrong. Not sure where you'll start, but good luck nonetheless. If one day I see carb points on packaging I'll know who to thank and it will be fully deserved.
 
Hey, @therower, @himtoo, and every body!
The "red, amber , green system put in place by the fsa/government, and probably cost a shed load of money(not to mention the ink usage on these colour blocks as opposed to a little extra ink on the carbs/serving) are of little use to anybody. They don't paint the real picture, and there isn't a lot in comparison of packets with green on them. Before I had type 1 ,I never took any notice of them, and neither does anybody I ask(try it, you'll be surprised) whereas what I propose could make the lives of millions of people with their daily struggle a lot easier being that they would know how much insulin to take,therefore managing their blood sugars better. And for people without diabetes can make an informed decision on their purchase!
Peace/Out
Benbaclat
 
totally agree with you -- I laugh at the info on the traffic light info -- it has no bearing on my decisions !!!
 
@therower, @Daibell, @noblehead, @helensaramay, @himtoo, @everybody!
A petition with 10,000 signatures gets a government response,
One with 100,000 signatures gets considered for debate in parliament!!!
If I get started, are you with me?!!
We are many!
Let's do something people of diabetes!
 
This drives me mad too! I bought a fruit salad in a well-known high street shop, went to check the carbs and found it was given in miniscule writing per 100grams. That's when I eventually found the carbs because the whole nutritional info was written in one long sentence.

So, having finally found the per 100g amount, I start looking for the weight of the fruit salad. It will be on the top of the carton, right? No. The back - ah....No! The side??

By this time, I'm getting a bit irritated and the poor fruit salad has been swung around and turned every which way!

I finally find it, and then have to sit there and do the mental Maths to work out the amount of carbs in the pot. I like Maths but it's bl@@dy annoying to have to do it for every item of my lunch and, of course, the Maths isn't easy amounts.

Type 1 carb counters might be a small part of the population, but surely anyone who's interested in nutritional info (eg calories) would want it given per portion too?
 

Gathering signatures for petitions don't have a good track history on diabetes forums, it would struggle to reach 10k never mind 100k.

But that said why not start one up and see how you get on, I'd be happy to sign it.
 
A tech savvy political person can point you at a site that enables you to set up an on line petetion to send to Parliament. If the petition reaches a not by any means an impossible number, Parliament has to debate it. T2 people also can do low carb counting aa an option, as can many other types of diet.
 
pot of yoghurt = 13.4 g per 100g. weight of yoghurt 167 grams. i'm not good at mental arithmetic. would be easier if they would give the food value of what is in the pot.
 
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