Total Carbohydrate, Sugars and Fibre?

[mortiferum]

Hi all

My first post - but a lurker since XMas eve 2013 (diagnosed type 2 on Xmas eve!)

So, since my diagnosis I have changed my eating habits to a Low carb diet and have had great succes so far - lost around 15kg in weight since XMas eve 2013.

However, I am still a little bit confused about interpruting the nutritional labels on the food items I purchase.

Up until now I have been focussed soley on the total Carb value but recently I came across the concept of Net Carbs, if I have understood correctly this is when you subtract the value against the fibre from the total carb, the resulting value is the amont of carbs that will effect blood sugar levels? Body cant digest fibre so this value can be duducted from the total carb content?

As an example I have just googled Flax Seed nutritional facts 100g and come up with the following:

Nutrition Facts per 100 g
Energy 2234 kj
534 kcal
Protein 18.29 g
Carbohydrate 28.88 g
Sugar 1.55 g
Fat 42.16 g
Saturated Fat 3.663 g
Monounsaturated Fat 7.527 g
Polyunsaturated Fat 28.73 g
Cholesterol 0 mg
Fibre 27.3 g
Sodium 30 mg
Potassium 813 mg



Could someone use this as a worked example and help me interpret this label accurately. At first glance I see Carb content - 28.88g and I think wow thats high I should avoid this, but recently I have been subtracting the fibre 27.3g from the Carb value - this leaves 1.53g of Net carbs, this is the amount that will actually effect my blood sugar levels?

Hoping for some clarity

many thanks

Morty

 

[tonyS54]

Hi welcome to the forum and well done on your progress so far.

Net carbs is something you will probably only see on imported goods, your correct in deducting the fibre in this case as it does not effect blood sugar.

 

[novorapidboi26]

my understanding is that all carbs will be converted to glucose....

does fibre turn to glucose.....?

 

[Bluetit1802]

You would be correct to deduct the fibre if you lived in the USA.
However, food labelling is different in the UK. Here, the fibre element has already been deducted, so you need to look at the total carbs.
In the USA the fibre is not deducted on the label, so in USA you would be correct in deducting it and using net carbs.

 

[novorapidboi26]

lol, that explains it....

 

[mortiferum]

This goes someway to explaining my confusion....Is there a way of telling if the nutritional label is US or UK in origin, my personal situation is that whilst I am from the UK, I am currently located abroad in the UAE and the products here are a mix of local and imported goods from around the world.

Specifically, How can I tell if the label I am looking at has already had the fibre deducted from the total carbs?




Sent from the Diabetes Forum App

 

[pavlosn]

Can anyone using myfitnesspal confirm that in the example below total net carbs is 129-28 = 101g

Thanks


Pavlos
Type 2 - Diagnosed 2009; Latest HbA1c 5,8%; Diabetes Medication: metformin 2x850mg; Other medication: Aspirin 75mg, Valsartan 80mg, Rosuvostatin 20mg, Ezetimibe 10mg; Exercise: One hour walk daily, tennis weekly, swimming when warm enough

 

[Yorksman]

my understanding is that all carbs will be converted to glucose....

does fibre turn to glucose.....?

No, fibre is a cellulose based carbohydrate and we don't produce any enzymes that digest it. Typically ruminants like cows break cellulose down, but it takes a long time for them tob do it. That's why they spend all day chewing.

In addition, there are other alpha carbs which we do not digest properly. These are typically legumes which are high in oligosaccharides. Again we don't produce the necessary enzymes to digest them but they do get partially broken down by bacteria in the gut. Hence they cause flatulence. They tend to also be high in fibre and are generally good for diabetics.

 

[Avocado Sevenfold]

This goes someway to explaining my confusion....Is there a way of telling if the nutritional label is US or UK in origin, my personal situation is that whilst I am from the UK, I am currently located abroad in the UAE and the products here are a mix of local and imported goods from around the world.

Specifically, How can I tell if the label I am looking at has already had the fibre deducted from the total carbs?




Sent from the Diabetes Forum App

I think that in the USA they spell it fiber and it is not deducted from the total carbs figure.

In the UK we spell it fibre and it is already deducted from the total carbs figure.

 

[phoenix]

Agree with Avocado about noting the spelling but also, US labels are by the serving size, European by the 100g. US say Carbs with fiber underneath as it is part of the Carb count. In Europe the fibre is placed separately.
(might complicate things if your product came from somewhere like Australia!)
As to Fitday, it is a minefield. Much of the data is crowd sourced, people from all over the world put in figures, copying from the label in their own country. The result is that some figures for carbs include fibre others don't.
If you use one of these trackers and use only 'generic' data then it probably comes from the USDA data base and so has fiber included with the carbs.
http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/search/list

 

[mortiferum]

I never knew this was so messed up! If I apply the logic suggested to identify US or UK origin, then the flax seed example above should already have had the fibre subtracted from the total carbs, since it is spelt fibre and is detailed separately away from the total carb and sugars! Is there a consistent nutritional database where they exclusively use US or UK nutritional information that someone can recommend either a website or app, paid or free?


Sent from the Diabetes Forum App

 

[michelle88]

You would be correct to deduct the fibre if you lived in the USA.
However, food labelling is different in the UK. Here, the fibre element has already been deducted, so you need to look at the total carbs.
In the USA the fibre is not deducted on the label, so in USA you would be correct in deducting it and using net carbs.

I have always been confused about this and now, thanks to this explanation, I can make some sense out of the carbs/net carbs question

 

[phoenix]

This site uses UK data, but only a bit of the data is available without joining . I quite often use it to check counts on basic foods when people ask on here. It seems to be a sort of online slimming club . After a free trial it costs £14.95
http://www.weightlossresources.co.uk/calories/calorie_counter/chicken_meat.htm
The USDA tracker is a free resource from the US government. You can check it out without creating an account. It's big downside is that it uses US cups and ounces for measurement. If you can get the data in it provides very comprehensive reports for a long list of nutrients . You can export the data in excel form.
I had to use it for a course recently and though it was just for one days intake, I found it exasperating because of I use grams and had to try to gind out things like how much spinach there is in a cup
(It was really difficult for people from Asia and Africa because many of the fresh foods they used weren't in it)
https://www.supertracker.usda.gov/default.aspx

You could get a book like the calorie, carb and fat bible which is UK based (and as they advertise it I think perhaps the source of data for weight loss resources) You could then input your own custom data into one of the free trackers like My fitness pal. Time consuming though.

 

[Yorksman]

I never knew this was so messed up!

Yes, it is. When they say food labelling is inadequate they are partically right but, they framed the legislation and they certainly didn't have diabetics in mind.

Consquently you get a sugar substitute like Truvia which says 100g of Truvia contains 99g of carbohydrate. There is no fibre. It must be bad for diabetics, surely?

No, there are other carbs and many of these high carb sweeteners, are OK but, they can cause what is wonderfully termed, 'gastric distress'.

 

[novorapidboi26]

are seeds not really low GI anyway, and so wouldn't have a significant effect on the BG.........?

insulin dependent folk may not be able to deal with such a slow absorption of glucose with the quicker acting insulin's......

 

[droog]

Is there a consistent nutritional database where they exclusively use US or UK nutritional information that someone can recommend either a website or app, paid or free?

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) maintains a free, public website that has a lot more information than anyone would probably ever want on many foods.

http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/search/list

 

[D Longstockings]

For the UK there is a database from the Food Standards Agency - the Composition of Foods, McCance & Widdowson. This is in book form, which is quite expensive and a bit fiddly to interpret. However it is also available as part of a new mobile app, Cook & Count Carbs, which is on Apple's iTunes app store. https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/cook-count-carbs/id779458642?mt=8