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Carbs in couscous

Jo_the_boat

Well-Known Member
Messages
810
Location
Littleborough, Lancashire
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
I'm being thick here........ please help.

The packet of couscous is 110g

It says under the 'Great to Know' sectuion:

Carbs per 100g: 27.5g
Carbs per half pack: 38.5g.

Now, a half packet is 55g? In which case carbs should be roughly 15g per half pack?

(Ignore the rest of the ingredients which are not all peachy)
 

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The weights in the nutritional info are once the packet is made up with water, so 110g dried couscous will make a lot more weight once cooked. This is one of my pet peeves, who weighs their food  after cooking?

Apart from maltodextrin, which is going to contribute far fewer carbs than the couscous itself, there's nothing in there that I wouldn't eat occasionally myself.
 
You're not being thick, or I am as well!
This doesn't make sense.

Maybe the per 100 is cooked weight (has absorbed carb free water) and the per half pack is uncooked. Would have been nice if they had added this rather essential information though!

Don't base your dosing on my guessing please, I'm not taking any responsibility for your bg after dosing for what may be (or not) the correct carbs!
 
Antje77 said:
Perhaps someone who cooked a large pot to be shared or used multiple days?
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True. We always weigh our ingredients beforehand when they're cold and drier, then work out how much of it we've dished up, by eye.
 
debs248 said:
True. We always weigh our ingredients beforehand when they're cold and drier, then work out how much of it we've dished up, by eye.
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I don't weigh anyway, too much faff, and my I:C ratios are far to varying to make it worth my time. Also, I don't have a kitchen scale usable for smaller amounts.
But I can imagine wanting to weigh after cooking, it can be very useful to know carb counts for cooked products.
 
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Fair enough. I just don't like putting hot or wet stuff on my scales, as they're electronic.
 
Antje77 said:
But it says so in general at the start of the nutrition table, nothing about the carbs per half pack being uncooked...
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It says as prepared as per instructions at the top of the nutritional table so if you look at the instructions it says 110g pack makes 280g - so it does say that the nutrition is for cooked - as in “prepared as per instructions”
 
lovinglife said:
it does say that the nutrition is for cooked - as in “prepared as per instructions”
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It does.
The problem is that the nutritional information per half pack seems to be for unprepared, and it doesn't say so in the table. Dosing insulin based on a quick glance at the package could go very wrong.
 
it’s the correct amount of carbs for 1/2 pack prepared. 38.5g Why would it confuse dosing if glance quickly at the panel - it says the correct carbs for 1/2 so you would dose for 38.5g carb would you not? It doesn’t mention anywhere the nutrition for uncooked that I can see?
 
Sorry @Antje77 I’m just not seeing the confusion, to me it’s pretty straightforward, half a pack cooked is 38.5g. Even if you hadn’t noticed that that was the cooked nutrition if you cooked half a pack thinking it was uncooked it would still equate to the 38.5g carb
 
Antje77 said:
It does.
The problem is that the nutritional information per half pack seems to be for unprepared, and it doesn't say so in the table. Dosing insulin based on a quick glance at the package could go very wrong.
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I see it as for the prepared portion.
Doubt that anyone would eat couscous without adding the water.
 
But if you go by the nutrition per 100 grams according to the pack you'll be way out if you go by what the pack says.
I never use the portion size part of nutritional tables, only the per 100 grams.
Who says I want to eat exactly half a pack?

edit: Or the other way around? I'm completely confusing myself now.
But the carbs aren't the same when converted to 100 grams from the 'half pack'.
Half pack supposedly weighs 55 grams and has 38.5 grams of carbs. Therefore 100 grams must be 70.5 gr of carbs.
According to the package, 100 grams has 27.5 grams of carbs.

This is a very large difference when it comes to insulin dosing, and from the table it's completely unclear that one value is cooked and one uncooked.
 
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As it's 38.5g for half a pack (55g uncooked) the carb value per 100g uncooked is 38.5/.55 or 70g
 
Antje77 said:
But if you go by the nutrition per 100 grams according to the pack you'll be way out if you go by what the pack says.
I never use the portion size part of nutritional tables, only the per 100 grams.
Who says I want to eat exactly half a pack?
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Ok the 100g is 27g carb - that’s for cooked too not uncooked so if you use 100g like you say you would chose then the carb would be 27g cooked. There’s no nutritional info on the packaging for uncooked. It’s all for cooked.
 
lovinglife said:
Ok the 100g is 27g carb - that’s for cooked too not uncooked so if you use 100g like you say you would chose then the carb would be 27g cooked. There’s no nutritional info on the packaging for uncooked. It’s all for cooked.
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I give up for today, I'm completely confused now and very happy I do not have to eat half a pack of couscous right now and try to calculate my dose!
 
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