Carbs counting

Carbs and Cals would say that 233g of spaghetti carbonara is 36.74g of carbs. What is her carb to insulin ratio for tea time?

I used the Carbs and Cals app its super useful for counting carbs as a type 1, would recommend it.
Most people start on 1:10 ratio when they begin carb counting but tweak it if needed. Like I need 1:8 for lunch but have 1:10 for tea. If she goes with 1:10 then she should have had 3.6u for that tea. Not 8.
(I would have rounded to 4 but that’s up to your discretion)

This is what the Carbs and Cals app looks like. It’s also available as a book but as you can update the app with new foods I would recommend the app over the book. Also makes eating out really easy with type 1

I searched for ‘spaghetti carbonara’ as that’s what you said you had, not only spaghetti. I used this to work it out.

Not a clue I find that really strange too, might be some other people on here can answer that. Hope your daughter is ok, we all make occasional mistakes in carb counting and as she’s so newly diagnosed she’s doing fab

Joe2000 said:

Help .My daughter is very confused in carbs counting. Her sugar level was 12 before eating, Weighted 233 grams of cooked spaghetti carbonara. Gave herself 8 units of insulin, hour later she went into a hypo at 3.7 don't understand why. she can't understand why. Her diabetes nurse never answer any questions we have . please help. 4 months in and with no better then the first day of being diagnose. Thank you

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Hi there. I can totally sympathize and relate. My advice would be to firstly get your basal and I:C ratios correct which unfortunately can be just trial and error. For me I found it best to eat the same type of meals not too high in fat or protein and to to test 2hrs later then 4 hrs and tweak my insulin dose accordingly. Make notes of everything and ask your DNS for advice if unsure. There could be a number of reasons why you went hypo an hour later my initial thought would be your IC ratio could be wrong and also the type of meal... Pasta takes a while to digest...if you inject for the full meal upfront the insulin starts working and lowering the BS faster than the carbs from the pasta are released. It's all about timing for example you may need to inject half the insulin before eating and half an hour after eating. To give you an example I am on a pump and if I eat spaghetti Bolognese I need to split my insulin and take 60% upfront and the other 40% over the next 4 hours. Please also bear in mind that high fat meals can also have an effect on insulin absorption / resistance and the fact that with only 4 months in will be in the honeymoon phase where your body sporadically produces insulin will make things a bit more tricky. Hope this makes sense and good luck with finding the right balance.

I have the same answer using MyFitnessPal . I have 37gram of carbs listed for 233g of (Morrisons) Spaghetti Carbonara. 8 units seems an awful lot for this amount of carbs (4.6 ratio).

Joe2000 said:

One last question. Do you know why is spaghetti on its own at 233g cooked, 80g of carbs? Thanks a lot for your help.

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Personally, I'd trust the food packaging, not an app. As to why it's high in carbs, it's dried flour paste, usually from durum wheat.

If it was the correct ratio and correct number of carbs, the insulin may have been injected too early, or maybe she ate top slowly? With larger doses, the timing becomes more critical because if the carbs aren't broken down before the insulin kicks in, be prepared for a rapid drop.

Could be wrong, but just wanted to throw it out there

Joe2000 said:

One last question. Do you know why is spaghetti on its own at 233g cooked, 80g of carbs? Thanks a lot for your help.

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Hi. The reason of that 233gr of only spaghetti having more carbs is because the spaghetti carbonara is weighed with the sauce so it most probably has less grams of spaghetti/carbs.

I think I must be missing something here, but 233g of spaghetti and 233g of spaghetti carbonara are entirely different dishes.

The former is a plateful of just pasta which will have lots of carbs in it, about 72g for 233g serving is correct. Pasta alone is just a high carb meal.

On the latter some of the 233g weight is made up the sauce (bacon, cheese, egg) which is virtually no carb.

So a 233g spaghetti carbonara at 37g of carbs will also be correct.

I always measure my pasta and rice and other carbs before cooking in order to calculate carbs for insulin. I also calculate and factor in carbs from milk and flour for sauces and any other carb food.
This figure is then divided by, in my case, 2 for me and hubby. That gives me my CHO, (carbohydrate overall) which I then divide by 5 for my IC.

When you look at food content . If you multiply the fat by 9 and the carbs and proteins by 4 that should give about the total calories . If you add up the g of fat protein and carb the difference between that and the total weight of the food will be it's water content x 0 calories

Joe2000 said:

Help .My daughter is very confused in carbs counting. Her sugar level was 12 before eating, Weighted 233 grams of cooked spaghetti carbonara. Gave herself 8 units of insulin, hour later she went into a hypo at 3.7 don't understand why. she can't understand why. Her diabetes nurse never answer any questions we have . please help. 4 months in and with no better then the first day of being diagnose. Thank you

Click to expand...

Joe2000 said:

Help .My daughter is very confused in carbs counting. Her sugar level was 12 before eating, Weighted 233 grams of cooked spaghetti carbonara. Gave herself 8 units of insulin, hour later she went into a hypo at 3.7 don't understand why. she can't understand why. Her diabetes nurse never answer any questions we have . please help. 4 months in and with no better then the first day of being diagnose. Thank you

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Hi Joe. I always had a hypo with pasta dishes if all my insulin was taken as a bolus. Pasta can, for some people be so slowly absorbed that there are very few carbs in the system so nothing for insulin to work on at peak activity. I used to have Humulin S purely for pasta as it has a slightly longer profile. Although I’m now on a pump I have 50% up front then the rest over 2 hours. When I was on multiple injections I had 50% of the dose then the rest 2-3 hours later. Unfortunately it’s a case of experimenting. Hope that helps.