-
Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2026 Survey »
carbs, net carbs, fibre???
- Thread starter comfort
- Start Date
A
Avocado Sevenfold
Guest
I go by net carbs.
phoenix
Expert
- Messages
- 5,671
- Type of diabetes
- Type 1
- Treatment type
- Pump
I find the net carbs in the Collins book are illogical. In the US they include fibre as part of the carb total. Total carbs cannot be greater than the fibre content . You deduct fibre to get a net carb figure ie digestible carbs
In the UK, fibre is already deducted so no computation is necessary.
I get the impression that the Collins book is sometimes using UK carb counts and then deducting fibre to come up with very odd answers. Also ,sometimes the figures don't bear much resemblance to anywhere else.
examples there are many others ; (these are from the 2004 edition so I apologise if it has since been revised; I'd be pleased if it had)
Rhubarb 60g: total carb, 0.5g , 0.8g fibre , net carb 0.3g. (!!!) ; whoops was answer a negative number?
Bamboo shoots 75g; total carb 0.5 fibre, 1.3g , net carb 0.8g (!!!) ; As above
Celeriac 100g total carb 2.3g,fibre 3.7g , a dash in the net carb column (do they mean it has no carbs?)
Walnuts(25g) total carb 0.8g, fibre 0.9g , net carb has a dash
Jerusalem artichokes (90g) total carb 9.5 g , no fibre recorded (!) net carb of 9.5g
If you use google ie put a food and carbohydrate into a search then you come up with figures from the USDA data base.You can then deduct fibre.
Otherwise there are books which use UK data (calorie, carb, fat,bible, carbs and cals) and online resources like weight loss resources which is from the UK
In the UK, fibre is already deducted so no computation is necessary.
I get the impression that the Collins book is sometimes using UK carb counts and then deducting fibre to come up with very odd answers. Also ,sometimes the figures don't bear much resemblance to anywhere else.
examples there are many others ; (these are from the 2004 edition so I apologise if it has since been revised; I'd be pleased if it had)
Rhubarb 60g: total carb, 0.5g , 0.8g fibre , net carb 0.3g. (!!!) ; whoops was answer a negative number?
Bamboo shoots 75g; total carb 0.5 fibre, 1.3g , net carb 0.8g (!!!) ; As above
Celeriac 100g total carb 2.3g,fibre 3.7g , a dash in the net carb column (do they mean it has no carbs?)
Walnuts(25g) total carb 0.8g, fibre 0.9g , net carb has a dash
Jerusalem artichokes (90g) total carb 9.5 g , no fibre recorded (!) net carb of 9.5g
If you use google ie put a food and carbohydrate into a search then you come up with figures from the USDA data base.You can then deduct fibre.
Otherwise there are books which use UK data (calorie, carb, fat,bible, carbs and cals) and online resources like weight loss resources which is from the UK
A
Avocado Sevenfold
Guest
I just use Tesco online. It displays net carbs.
Robbity
Expert
- Messages
- 6,698
- Type of diabetes
- Type 2
- Treatment type
- Diet only
I think it depends on where you live as to what values you need to use.
As I understand it, net carbs appears to be US "thing" as they include fibre in with carbohydrates on their food labelling, so they subtract the fibre from the total carbs and get their net carbs.
In the UK our nutritional labelling lists carbohydrates and fibre as separate items so there's no need to do this. To me this implies that US net carbs = UK total carbs as far as the carbohydrate values go. So I work on the assumption that since I'm in the UK I work with the (total) carbs values on our food labelling, and net carbs are irrelevant, and there's no messing about with calculations needed.
Robbity
As I understand it, net carbs appears to be US "thing" as they include fibre in with carbohydrates on their food labelling, so they subtract the fibre from the total carbs and get their net carbs.
In the UK our nutritional labelling lists carbohydrates and fibre as separate items so there's no need to do this. To me this implies that US net carbs = UK total carbs as far as the carbohydrate values go. So I work on the assumption that since I'm in the UK I work with the (total) carbs values on our food labelling, and net carbs are irrelevant, and there's no messing about with calculations needed.
Robbity
