• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Confused

L

lynnnora2

Member
Messages
23
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Hi all. I'm going to sound stupid here but when you count carbs is it the of which sugars bit I need to count. Trying to eat low carb but not sure what I'm doing.
 
You can ignore the of which sugars bit. Sugar is just one of many carbs. It is the total carbs you need to look for.

There are no stupid questions. If you don't know something it is stupid not to ask. :)
 
justbe said:
No. It's total carbs. The "of which sugars" part is basically useless; all carbs become sugars basically as soon as they enter your mouth (your saliva breaks down complex carbs into sugars long before they reach your stomach, especially if you chew).

And of course, since this isn't a stupid question but does suggest inexperience, if the nutrition table is "per 100g" or something like that, you need to work out how many MORE it will be for the total amount you're eating. i.e., if you're eating 200g of the food, then you double whatever it says for 100g.
Click to expand...

I agree. What I do is look at the carbs per 100g. As this is a percentage (ie 12g per 100g is 12%) Then 12% of whatever portion I eat is carbohydrate. If the amount to be eaten is minuscule, as it might be in a condiment, then it is hardly worth bothering about.
 
I’m new to this Lchf. I don’t know if we have to count the carbs of above ground vegetables. It’s difficult to make sure I count all the bits on the plate. Please help.
 
Wilber123 said:
I’m new to this Lchf. I don’t know if we have to count the carbs of above ground vegetables. It’s difficult to make sure I count all the bits on the plate. Please help.
Click to expand...
I tend to as I try to stay very (ultra low) low carb. Its quite easy just use Tesco or Waitrose website and weigh stuff.. after a while it becomes second nature. I also tend to eat quite similar things so once I've got the details of a foodstuff on my spreadsheet I just copy them over. Some may think this is a bit obsessive but it's my life and my health so I think it's quite important.
 
Wilber123 said:
I’m new to this Lchf. I don’t know if we have to count the carbs of above ground vegetables. It’s difficult to make sure I count all the bits on the plate. Please help.
Click to expand...

Initially, until you know how many carbs are on your plate, it is best to count them all. The vegetables mount up surprisingly quickly. There is an excellent book (and app) called Carbs and Cals available from Amazon. This will help you enormously. Eventually it will all become automatic.
 
Wilber123 said:
I’m new to this Lchf. I don’t know if we have to count the carbs of above ground vegetables. It’s difficult to make sure I count all the bits on the plate. Please help.
Click to expand...
Hey Wilber123 - Counting the carbs is difficult, like you say when you need to include the veg too some times its hard to get it spot on. When i used to count carbs, i would go by the raw weight of the veg. I am sure some is lost in the cooking process but i found it easier to count as i would weigh out round numbers.
Hope this helps!
 
If you make a notebook - I used a real one back in the day but I am sure many can do it electronically now, it is handy to have for reference.
If you check on line for the carb count you need to be aware that the US sites include fibre and the UK ones do not, so some things can be very different - also fruit in the US is sweeter (also larger). Blueberries are something to avoid, being the US variety they are twice as sweet as - for instance - strawberries.
 
Back
Top