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Carbs v Sugar - Confused

Brodiebear

Well-Known Member
Messages
45
Location
Telford
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Dislikes
Diabeties
Okay,

So on the back of food packaging in the nutrition section you often see something like this;

Carbohydrate 30.9g 38.6g (14%)
of which sugars 0.0g 0.0g (0%)

So Sugar free - No, cause their is 38.6g of Carbohydrate ?! (which if all sugar would be just under 8 teaspoons of sugar, I have been told one teaspoon near is near enough 5 grams), So do we say that; forget the sugar and go on the Carb figure, but would all the Carbs be converted into sugar, or would it be a percentage ?

Confused dont come close.

Steve
 
If you want to go Low Carb High Fat then I would recommend not buying stuff that is more than 5% carb max i.e. less than 5g of cab per 100g. That seems to get rid of most of the stuff that isn't very helpful to type 2's controlling their blood sugar levels. It also means that you can ignore huge swathes of supermarket shelves so speeds up shopping considerably...
For us Type 2's most carbs can be considered bad as they turn to glucose in the body.. brown or white they have a similar effect. To get a good and speedy control of your sugar levels try and cut out as many as possible.
That's certainly what happened for me.
 
Yep....ignore the 'which sugars' info. ALL carbs will be converted with our bodies..so it is the total carbs that really matter when it comes to our blood sugar levels and how many carbs you do consume to cause those blood sugar levels go out of ideal level. My comfort level is under 50g per day...ideally about half of that to keep really good control and nothing from wheat/grain based carbs.....from berries, some from veg and some from dairy and all is well with me.
 
Interesting thread here. I was also told (rightly so by my DSN) to ignore "of which sugars" values.

Can someone kindly explain what this actually means?

Cheers,
Grant
 
Sadly if you have diabetes then carbs are best avoided as much as possible as the body can't utilise them very well. All carbs turn to sugar during digestion so it is best to just look at the total carbs on packets for guidance. Rice, pasta, bread, cakes, biscuits and cereals are amongst the worst offenders, particularly the white variety. If you go for the wholegrain variety (brown) then the blood sugar rises more slowly, but it is best to really cut back on quantities. Some people can cope with some foods better than others, so it is best to test your blood sugars immediately before and two hours after eating meals to help find out what you can tolerate. No doubt you will soon learn all about this with help from forum members.
 
The safest way is to work on the total carbohydrate quanity, it varies from person to person but not all carbs are converted into sugar in fact in some people not all complex sugars are broken down into the simple sugars which enter the blood stream either.
 

Could you then explain why lettuce with zero carb salad dressing raised me 50 points?
 
The "of which sugars" can be ignored. It will only tell you that it contains sugar (some ingredient ending in ose, not carbs) and the more there is the faster the release will be inside your system. The total carbs amount contains this sugar in its total, hence the term "of which". So be guided by the total carbs.
 
Kristin251 said:
Could you then explain why lettuce with zero carb salad dressing raised me 50 points?
Click to expand...
I have to ask @Kristin251 what was in the dressing......
I'm expressing doubts about Asparagus, which I have had the last two evenings, with pretty high readings... it's only meant to be 2% carb...
 
@Brodiebear Carbohydrates is a collective term for chemicals that mainly consist of lots of sugars stuck together to make multisugar compounds. Starch in potato is really lots and lots of glucose compounds.
Table sugar is a disaccharide made up of a glucose and a fructose.
They all are broken down to their simple monosaccharide form by our bodies.
As others have said, go by the Carbs.
Good luck
Hj
 
hankjam said:
I have to ask @Kristin251 what was in the dressing......
I'm expressing doubts about Asparagus, which I have had the last two evenings, with pretty high readings... it's only meant to be 2% carb...
Click to expand...
It was Caesar dressing. Mostly fat. I didn't eat the cheese or the croutons obviously.
I am ok with a few 2 or 3 stalks of asparagus if I have no other carbs or salad. . Broccoli and cauliflower are worse for me. Green beans too. I eat small meals and have to have enough fat in them to keep the spike low and slow or just stay steady. Low fat meals spike me. Did you have any fat in your meal? I find fat to be the dominant player. Not enough and spike, too much low then high but I am on insulin so if you're not on meds you shouldn't get the low.
Sometimes we get the weirdest reactions from foods we shouldn't. Personally I have to watch my protein portions too as they will spike me as much as carbs but I think this is more prevalent in T1's. Although I did see it for a few years as I was progressing. All macros matter and need to balance each other in my case
 

It was pork, salad and asparagus, with a OO dressing. Normally I'm sub 6 2 hours after, for those two nights I was 7.2 and 6.8, which came as a bit of shock...
Wish you well
 
hankjam said:
It was pork, salad and asparagus, with a OO dressing. Normally I'm sub 6 2 hours after, for those two nights I was 7.2 and 6.8, which came as a bit of shock...
Wish you well
Click to expand...

Maybe something else was going on - an adrenalin rush or even a full bladder round about the time you tested. My sensor has told me I go up slightly if I need the loo but can't be bothered to go, usually when I'm in bed. I've also had the odd higher than it should be rise after a meal I've had many times without a problem and it comes as a shock. It's one of the many mysteries of this disease.
 
Yep, they'll be converted into sugar. The U.S. Have a different system called net carbs,me here you deduct the fibre, but in the UK, that total carb number is the net. I heard one of the heart surgeons state that a teaspoon is 4gs, so even worse at 10 teaspoons full. You've only got to look at most of the yoghurts in all the supermarkets to cringe when you figure the number of spoons in just one little pot.


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