Full Carbs Or Net Carbs?

In the UK we work with total carbs as fibre is listed separately. In the USA fiber ( note the difference in spelling) is included in with the carbs, so needs to be deducted to get net carbs. So: UK total carbs = USA net carbs...

Fibre tends not to cause any rise in glucose levels like other types of carbs generally do, so this is why we treat it this way.

If you look at official/commecial nutritional infornation or labelling then if carbs and fibre are listed separately you need do nothing, and if it's included in with carbs, then deduct it.

But you need to take some care if you see information from sources where the information is added by users, e.g. My Fitness Pal, as how the carb content is given because in some cases it could make a very big difference!


Robbity

Yes, I agree with @Robbity especially when using websites where users enter the amounts.

Mr_Pot said:

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Concise and precise - I like it @Mr_Pot!

Robbity

Hi @Robbity and @Mr_Pot. At the risk of sounding daft can you explain the ‘of which sugars’ part to me. I recently bought something that had 0.2g sugar on the front of the label but 9g total carbs on the back... what should I be counting?

Bingale1 said:

Hi @Robbity and @Mr_Pot. At the risk of sounding daft can you explain the ‘of which sugars’ part to me. I recently bought something that had 0.2g sugar on the front of the label but 9g total carbs on the back... what should I be counting?

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Just ignore the ‘of which sugars’ it’s already included in the carb count

Thanks Rachox. Do you know what the significance of that figure is? I wonder why they put it on the front instead of the carb count (which would obviously be more useful).

Bingale1 said:

Thanks Rachox. Do you know what the significance of that figure is? I wonder why they put it on the front instead of the carb count (which would obviously be more useful).

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I have no clue why the carb count isn’t in a more prominent place! Carb count is obviously more important for us diabetics.

Rachox said:

I have no clue why the carb count isn’t in a more prominent place! Carb count is obviously more important for us diabetics.

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Thank you again. I feel I should know more by now but the whole carbs/ sugars thing confounds me so I just go for the total carbs to be on the safe side. Thanks so much for your responses.

Sugar is a carb and other foodstuffs have carbs in them e.g cereals, fruit etc. The manufacturers want to keep the 'sugar' part of the labelling (be that in the traffic lights or in the 'of which sugars' part of the info) sounding low so as not to scare off paying customers. Anyone who realises that it makes no difference what name you give something, a carb is a carb, will shy away from a high carb foodstuff but if you are unaware that all carbohydrates are converted to glucose in the body then you may only look at the traffic lights/of which sugars part and judge a particular foodstuff to be healthy. It's a bit of a con, really.