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Help!.carb counting and bolognese sauce?

saucequery

Well-Known Member
Messages
65
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Insulin
Hi
I've posted in the food section but it seems a bit quiet in there so thought I'd try here as well (and hopefully be a bit wiser before teatime)..
I'm a t2 and fairly new to a bolus/basal regime and carb counting.
My diabetes service told me not to count meat or tomatoes/ veg (except peas/beans/pulses/legumes).

I've made bolognese sauce which I'm going to try with pasta, The bolognese sauce contains 1 carton passata, 1 can chopped tomatoes 2 tbsp tomato puree, onion, carrot, garlic, celery, beef mince and a stock cube, and I've got six portions out of it

Should the sauce basically be counted as no carbs? It feels a bit wrong. Obviously I'm going to count the pasta separately

Many thanks, and im happy to delete either of these duplicate threads!
 
We are all different, so you may be OK eating an apple, but I can't eat a raw carrot without seeing it raise my BG. The advice you have been given is a simplified one-size-fits-all approach. Protein and Fat have hardly any effect for a T2 diabetic, but carbs can vary tremendously.

If you want to take things more seriously and can afford a BG meter and a couple of hundred test strips, then you have your own personal diabetes expert for your own particular body and state of insulin resistance etc.

That's what i used to get into T2D remission and stay in remission for over 4yrs (so far).
 
Thanks for your reply Ian.

I have a freestyle libre so should be able to spend slightly less on testing strips...

My problem is simply that I haven't got a clue as to whether I should be counting pasta *and* the sauce when calculating the overall meal carbs to work out this night's novorapid, or just counting the pasta; I get really anxious about getting it wrong

Congratulations on your remission - long may it continue!
 
I'm a type 1, so it may be different for you, and I don't want to go against what you've been told but the passata and tin of tomatoes may have added sugar, so I'd check the back of the tin/packet, and all above ground vegetables contain carbs to varying degrees....

I'm trying to be careful not to go against forum rules or medical advice you've been given, so I'll just say maybe have a very small portion of the sauce and see how it affects your blood sugar.
 
If you're eating your sauce with pasta, the pasta will likely have so much more carbs than the sauce that I wouldn't worry about the relatively small amount of carbs in the sauce.

Being new to a basal/bolus regime, your current ratios are mostly guesswork, it takes a lot of time to find the patterns.
What about going with the pasta carbs this time and make note of your dose, your premeal and your postmeal numbers at 2 and 4 hours?

This will allow you to make a more funded guess on dosing next time, and by the time you'll have the 6th portion you'll have a much better idea on the amount of insulin this particular meal needs.

Insulin dosing is trial and error, and finding patterns.
 
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