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Carbs and sugars on labels

lucylocket61

lucylocket61

Expert
Messages
6,394
Location
Wrexham
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
I am getting confused. Some labels list carbs and sugars. Some labels list only sugar, not carbs. How do I read them correctly please?

and are American carbs and sugars on recipes and labels calculated differently from UK ones? :eh:
 
sugars are actually a subset of carbohydrates. As is cellulose [dietary fibre]. Here in Britain we list cabohydrates OF WHICH sugars. and don't include fibre. The Americans listing includes Fibre and you do have to do simple sums on their labels
Hana
 
You want to look at the full nutrition label which is usually on the back of the product. The 'non official' flashy one on the front does indeed just have sugars and not total carbs. http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pag ... lling.aspx
The total carbs on the label shown are 20,8g per hundred and 77.4 g in the total pack(you don't always get that)

As Hana says in the US they include fibre as part of the carb count. If you are looking at US sites then you need to subtract the fibre from the carb count to get an equivalent reading to the UK.
 
This is a US site
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/veg ... cts/2667/2
It says that for 100g Sweet Potato there are 21g total Carbs of which 3g are fibre and 6g sugar. The sugar is very much part of the carb but you can subtract the 3 g of fibre to give you the figure that we would use for carbs in the UK.

( Really though unless you are on an extremely low carb dieter for whom every gram matters then 3 grams aren't going to make much difference. In any case natural products like potato will vary according to ripeness and how long they have been stored. There isn't much point searching for manufactured foods on US data bases as even products with the same name may have different recipes... and it's easier to look at the label.)
 
Thanks. So if its am American site for recipes, and the total carbs are put on the recipes, that should be figure I use?
 
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