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Carbs in bacon & Diabetic animals.

Klpville

Well-Known Member
Messages
97
Type of diabetes
Prediabetes
Treatment type
Diet only
Dislikes
I dislike all sorts of motors, engines, mechanics, and just any "rusty iron" in general.
Correct me if I am wrong, but... dietdoctor suggests bacon and eggs for breakfast which is a bit weird for me. I have checked it for many times as it used to be my favorite breakfast (not any more though) because bacon alone contains minimum 15 grams of carbs per 100 grams in package, which also includes 5.5 grams of sugars. I do not really understand how could this breakfast, according to doctordiet, contain only 1 gram of carbs and 0 sugars... bacon packages sold in stores and malls have labels on them... take a look and see it for yourself...

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@Klpville Bacon has zero carbs. Are you in the US (you mention 'malls')? US bacon might have other additives but in UK bacon sold in butcher's shops is usually additive free. But cheap supermarket bacon will often have additives.

Edit: 'Sweetcure' or 'Maplecure' bacon probably have added sugar.
 
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In the US, bacon is very often drowned in sugar. Particularly anything you’ll be served in burgers etc.
 
I am currently in Europe and their bacon also doesn't differ much from any sugar rich products because it has something like 10 grams of sugar and 20 grams of carbs in their 100 grams packages of bacon.
 
Klpville said:
I am currently in Europe and their bacon also doesn't differ much from any sugar rich products because it has something like 10 grams of sugar and 20 grams of carbs in their 100 grams packages of bacon.
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This got me wondering because I had always assumed bacon was zero carb. I just checked the packet of Tesco thick-cut bacon I have in the fridge and sure enough it is zero carb (phew!). Maybe we are just lucky in the UK.
 
I was in Iceland 30 minutes ago and had a look at the nutrition information on their bacon packs which showed 'less than' 0.5g of carbs per 100g.
 
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@Klpville

The bacon sold in vacuum packs in all the supermarkets in my town are zero carbs and sugar, or up to the "trace" amounts of 0.5%. I have never seen any sold anywhere here that has carbs and sugar, and over the years I have read the labels on all of them. The bacon bought from butchers shops is also carb free. I have never looked at any outside the UK.
 
pete254 said:
This got me wondering because I had always assumed bacon was zero carb. I just checked the packet of Tesco thick-cut bacon I have in the fridge and sure enough it is zero carb (phew!). Maybe we are just lucky in the UK.
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Sorry, didn't mean to scare you. But on the other hand it never hurts to double-check. I am all new to all these labels' reading so.. it will take some time to learn the ropes I guess.. Yes, you are lucky indeed to have it with zero carbs. I have never had to think about it before though... I ate absolutely anything I wanted just a month ago...
 

Lucky you. When I am to the UK I am eating bacon and eggs again my favorite breakfast, healthy and carbs and sugar free.
 
Prem51 said:
I was in Iceland 30 minutes ago and had a look at the nutrition information on their bacon packs which showed 'less than' 0.5g of carbs per 100g.
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Right. Perhaps I will have to consider moving to Iceland or back to the UK again not to be worried about carbs and sugar in products that are originally supposed to be carbs/sugar free.
 
Hi , bit of a misconception there, Iceland is the frozen food chain of stores here in the UK who also sell fresh and cold packed foods, easy to be a bit confused if you have been out of the UK for a while, the strange thing is we in the UK actually get an awful lot of our bacon from the continent, and people I know from Holland, and Germany have remarked on how ours is different in texture and taste.
 

Well, the way he said it looked like it was the country (Iceland). Plus, this supermarket chain is primarily located in Wales and I have never been there. In fact, I do not remember seeing any "Iceland" in London either. But I might as well just didn't pay much attention as my favorites have always been Morrisons and Tesco.
 
No Hassle, I fully understand, you would not believe some of my misreads, I am not poking fun at you or running you down, we have an Iceland in Basingstoke, and you do not get much more exotic than that,

And A sincere welcome to you, there is an awful lot of information on this site, which you will find beneficial, and a really good bunch of people, I have found out so much since I joined, and it helps to know you are not alone, I was Prediabetes for a number of years, and now Type 2, please be at ease on here.
 
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If your bacon contains sugar or unwanted preservatives, and you do not have any other source, put it into hot water for a few minutes before sieving it out and frying it as normal - sugar is very soluble and a lot of it will be washed away. It might reduce starch too, but that I can't promise. At least it will reduce the problem and the nasties too.
I was struck by the OP being told that losing weight would put their diabetes into remission. Not reduce your blood glucose, which is what it is all about, but lose weight.
 

Thank you. That's a great advice! It will really prove useful I guess. I wonder do carbs dissolve somehow as well? Let's say you fry them out of a product you want to eat. I know that microwave energy turns carbs even into more glucose That is when you heat up your food in your microwave oven it increases its glycemic index and glucose. Are there any similar ways to turn carbs into something else (not sugar/glucose) by using heat.. cold.. water.. condiments.. anything else?
 

Thank you. Yes, I noticed straight away that people over here were very friendly and helpful. It sure does help to know that you're not alone.
 
Assuming that you dissolve the soluble stuff - nitrates and nitrites are usually very soluble, sugars commonly found in foods and processing are too. The things which remain are the starches, not soluble. They do not become fluid with heat - quite the reverse, they set solid (I used to work for Allied Lyons the food people in their development lab in Market Harborough). When you heat up food the GI and glucose do not alter unless you are using amylase to break down starch - the carb content doesn't alter but the glucose can then be used by yeasts at fermentation temperatures. Temperatures reached in cooking would not allow fermentation.
You can turn carbs into fats by feeding them to animals, or eating them yourself, or they can make useful bait for fish and various animals....
 

Worry not. I also thought it was the country and wondered how he got back in 30 minutes, plus we used to have an Iceland store in my town several years ago so I should have realised.
 
Bluetit1802 said:
Worry not. I also thought it was the country and wondered how he got back in 30 minutes, plus we used to have an Iceland store in my town several years ago so I should have realised.
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Yes, I normally take things for granted. I once played a friendly joke on a person who is a friend of mine now. I said, "What's with the haste? Do you own that plane?" What do you know, he really appeared to own that airplane and a few others as well so we had to hurry up not to miss our paid "corridor" in the air to have time to fly from one country to another. He didn't either fend my joke off in any way or say anything about it in return but imagine how surprised I was when we entered his plane, his pilots grabbed our baggage and stored it away, and there was nobody else on that plane except for us. That was wow! So I thought perhaps that's another person on diabetes.co.uk who also owns aircrafts and flies / travels wherever he wants to, 30 minutes ago in Iceland, then two hours later in Germany for example and so on.
 
In some countries they favour a sweet cure for their bacon products, but generally in UK we don't. Our butcher sells a sweet cure bacon as an option, and I would say by the time it gets to the plate the cure is likely to have been washed off at some stage of the pig to table process. It's just not a flavour I prefer.

It is possible to make bacon at home from belly, middle or back cuts of pork, but it takes a while, and I've elected not to go down that route so far
 
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