Counting carbs questions

Orangeteddy said:

I've been trying to learn about carb counting and watched a short utube video where the lady shows some easy looking examples and food labels. She says to look at the portion size on the label, and then subtract the amount shown on the label for fibre.

So....

I'm now looking at a container of salted peanuts by a well known brand. For a 30g serving it says carbohydrate = 1.7g and then below this is says of which SUGARS = 1.5g

Is my starting number 1.7 or 1.5?

What does the which SUGARS bit mean?

Confusingly, for Fibre, and in the same portion serving column for 30g of the nuts, for Fibre it says 2.6

Maths is not my strong point but going by the video I watched and the above, that makes these not only carb free but less than carb free?

1.7 (or 1.5) minus 2.6

Am I correct or just completely confused?

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Assuming you are in the UK the amount of Carbohydrate has already had the fibre deducted. The "of which sugars" can be ignored as it is no help in carb counting. So in your example the amount of carbs is 1.7g.

Unfortunately, this is reported differently depending on which country you are in.
I am going to go out on a limb and, to keep things simple, assume you are in the UK.

In the UK, fibre is not included in the total carbohydrate.
As, typically, we do not digest fibre and it does not affect our BG, you do not have to worry about the amount of fibre.
You can ignore this number.

So the next question is the "of which sugar" bit.
There are two types of carbohydrates - sugar and starch. Starch is the non sweet carbs in potatoes, rice, pasta, etc. Sugar is, pretty much the sweet stuff (ignoring artificial sweeteners which contain NO carbs).
Starch and sugar affects BG.
You can ignore the "of which sugars" number.

So, if you are in the UK, all you need to consider is the Total Carbohydrates.
Nothing to add, nothing to subtract, no maths involved.

For a standard portion of your peanuts, the total carbs are ...
<drum roll please>
1.7g

Orangeteddy said:

I've been trying to learn about carb counting and watched a short utube video where the lady shows some easy looking examples and food labels. She says to look at the portion size on the label, and then subtract the amount shown on the label for fibre.

So....

I'm now looking at a container of salted peanuts by a well known brand. For a 30g serving it says carbohydrate = 1.7g and then below this is says of which SUGARS = 1.5g

Is my starting number 1.7 or 1.5?

What does the which SUGARS bit mean?

Confusingly, for Fibre, and in the same portion serving column for 30g of the nuts, for Fibre it says 2.6

Maths is not my strong point but going by the video I watched and the above, that makes these not only carb free but less than carb free?

1.7 (or 1.5) minus 2.6

Am I correct or just completely confused?

Click to expand...

No wonder you are confused! With that information on the video it is clear it was an American video. They have totally different food labelling rules than we have in Europe.

In the UK and the EEC the labelling is always per 100g rather than per portion. ASs it is per 100g it is the same as a percentage, so if it says 6g per 100g it is 6%.

The total carbohydrate amount is the amount you count
You can ignore the "of which sugars"
The UK system is simple. The US system is confusing.

Hi @Orangeteddy I would advise to just take the total carbohydrate number. Food producers in my opinion are disingenuous with the "of which are sugars" as your body cares about the total amount; often on the traffic lights system you see the sugar amount as green, just to see the carbohydrates are significant (for me this should not be allowed). I believe in the US they minus fibre.

Orangeteddy said:

Thank you everyone. Yes I am in the UK and yes, going by the accent of the person on the video, it was probably American.

ps - I'm also trying to get to grips with the little symbols on the bottom of posts here so hopefully I have appropriately clicked the right ones.

Thanks again. This is a great place to learn.

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I agree that this group is marvellous for learning about our condition but I would add that it has taught me more about foodstuffs in general than I ever knew before. After learning about how to count carbs I learned about some of the different sugars there are, about cooking oils and types of fats, and about some of the jargon in the ingredients lists on packages. This site Rocks!

The very weird thing is that I first was taught about carb counting by a nutritionist when I lived in America.

I now live in the UK, but must have forgotten/not been told/labels were different then as now I've taken carb counting up again after an interval of many years, and just went straight to the Total carbs bit and ignored the rest.

Or maybe I'm just smart

Mr_Pot said:

Assuming you are in the UK the amount of Carbohydrate has already had the fibre deducted. The "of which sugars" can be ignored as it is no help in carb counting. So in your example the amount of carbs is 1.7g.

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I read this and I want to shake a friend who was diagnosed earlier in the year will happily tells me it’s all about the sugar in the carb reading. And they maintain they have done their research!!!!