Carbs in lentils ?!?!?

[Emerlou]

Really hoping someone can help with this as the internet has only confused me more!

On the Diabetes UK site I've just seen a recipe for a yellow lentil dhal, stating that a 300g serving would have less than 2g carbs.

https://www.diabetes.org.uk/Guide-to-diabetes/Recipes/Channa-dahl/

That sounded fantastic - almost too fantastic TBH, and based on my prior understanding of carb counts I found this a bit difficult to believe so googled yellow lentils only to find completely conflicting amounts on every possible nutrition site - the only thing they did seem to agree on is that 225g yellow lentils does not come out at <2g carbs. In fact the amounts listed ranged from as little as 6g of carbs to almost 200g carbs. A massive difference. And even something down the middle would just totally blow my LCHF WOE out of the water.

I could probably just ignore it and not bother including lentils in my diet, but at my appointment with DSN this morning - diabetes still in remission, woohoo!!!! - she said everything is good and the only thing to aim for is to increase my levels of HDL (currently sitting at 1.2) by increasing beans, pulses, lentils and seeds. Now, I already do include seeds so can probably up that a little, but I know that the first two are hardly low carb, and I'd struggle to reap much benefit from the miniscule amount I'd be allowed.

I do sometimes crave things like this, lentils are one of my old favourites that I've entirely given up, so I thought I'd have a looksee. According to this recipe they appeared to be much lower carb and entirely manageable with my WOE, but I'm a bit funny about relying on others' figures and like to check these things out for myself so off I went.

Completely puzzled! Not sure if I'm searching under the wrong thing ('yellow lentils' can't be that different from 'yellow lentils', right???), but if so that might explain the skewed results. But I'd still need to source - and buy - the right ones to make the recipe fit the nutritional info listed. And I really want it to fit the nutritional info listed!!! I REALLY do!

Any ideas anyone?

p.s.I'm in the UK and not keen on bulk buying from abroad with hefty postage, so if anyone has managed to find some magic lentils that fit into these nutritional values in the UK, would you mind posting a link? Pretty please? Will be eternally grateful

Waiting hopefully...

 

[azure]

A misplaced decimal point perhaps? I'd go by the carb info n the dry weight of lentils I was using.

Why not contact DUK and point this out so they can check?

 

[bulkbiker]

And there was me thinking that Channa were chickpeas... that dish looks like Tarka Dahl to me..
Still..
Chickpeas seem to have about 16.5g of carbs per 100g (thats in water rather than dried)
Lentils look to be 10.5g per 100g (again in water)
Neither especially low carb.. looks like DUK have not only their name for the dish wrong but also the nutritional values... Much the same with their dietary info for Type 2's hey ho..

 

[Deleted Account]

A couple of thoughts
- some things like rice have a different carb count depending whether you weigh them before or after cooking because (in the case of rice) they absorb water in the cooking process. Could this be the case with lentils and explain the huge variation?
- a dietician once told me some people absorb the carbs in pulses like chickpeas and other people do not. This makes carb counting for hummus a bit more complicated. I guess some human bodies treat them like fibre. I have always assumed lentils have the same affect.

Could you try the recipe and see what impact it has for you. Although this may mess up with your lchf for a day, it will answer the question regarding how it impacts you. And, looking on the bright side, it may have very little impact on your BG so you will know you can have them in the future.

 

[Mr_Pot]

Here is some information about net carbs per 100g lentils from the packets:

Puy Lentils dry 47.6g

Puy Lentils pre-cooked in a sachet 18.1g

Yellow Lentils (Chana Dal) dry 59.7g

The cooking method with Puy Lentils is to add 3 times as much water, most of which is absorbed during cooking so 100g of dry lentils becomes about 300g when cooked.

I would expect Chana Dal to be similar so 300g cooked weight would come from 100g dry weight with about 60g carbs, definitely not 2g!

The Chana Dal (small split lentils) are chick peas but a different variety from the larger (9mm?) ones.

Although they seem to have a high percentage of carbs, I find I can eat 50g (25g carbs) dry weight without too much effect on my BG. Maybe there is something in the indigestible carbs theory that @helensaramay mentioned as they seem to have less effect than the same amount of carbs in some other things.

 

[Dark Horse]

The recipe has 225g dry weight of 'yellow lentils' and serves 4, i.e. each person has only 56g of dry lentils. This website http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/calories/generic-chana-dal-dry-204356574 gives the carb content as 47g carbohydrate per 100g of lentils so in 56g lentils there would be approx 26.3g of carbohydrate. I think there must be an error in the quoted carb content in the recipe.

 

[Mr_Pot]

The recipe has 225g dry weight of 'yellow lentils' and serves 4, i.e. each person has only 56g of dry lentils. This website http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/calories/generic-chana-dal-dry-204356574 gives the carb content as 47g carbohydrate per 100g of lentils so in 56g lentils there would be approx 26.3g of carbohydrate. I think there must be an error in the quoted carb content in the recipe.

You are correct. I assumed the 300g servings were cooked lentils but there must be a lot of non-absorbed water as well. The result must be quite soupy.

 

[Emerlou]

Thank you so much everyone for getting back to me, I felt sure the recipe was wrong but was seriously hoping! Think I will try with a smaller amount and see what that does to my BS, but lentils might still be off the menu for me

 

[Mr_Pot]

Thank you so much everyone for getting back to me, I felt sure the recipe was wrong but was seriously hoping! Think I will try with a smaller amount and see what that does to my BS, but lentils might still be off the menu for me

A half quantity as a side dish might work, let us know how it turns out. I like lentils and I have them at least once a week. I think I will try the Chicken and Lentil Curry recipe at the bottom of the same page.