What should I be looking for on a food label

[Q
UOTE="Baldbilluk, post: 1516917, member: 422221"]I am a very new diabetic and I will be going shopping for the first time as a diabetic (Type2) and as I have not seen a dietician (or diabetic nurse) yet I want to make a good start and I will start looking at the labels, can anyone give me some advice on what to look out for ie 2g of carbo per 100g or 2ml of carbo per 250mls, (or are they foods with 0g/0mls) its so i can start preparing for the big appointment, also can someone give me a view pointers of inexpensive "starter" foods to start using, as I am unwaged. Thanks for the advice[/QUOTE]
Hi,

Ignore the traffic lights - they are actually dangerously wrong. Instead look on the back of the packet, if there are more than 10g carbs per hundred then ditch it. better yet only buy foods with no labels at all- ie real foods, meat, fish, eggs, dairy, nuts, above ground vegetables.
look at dietdoctor.com to find the list.

Note that the fatttiest types of meat ar the cheapest and the best for you, plus offals, plus bone broths made from bones from a butcher very cheap - I only ever buy the cheapest stuff on offer .

Also when you get used to this way of life,the quantity of what you eat will go down and so will the food bill !

Hello Baldbilluk welcome to the forum.
If the dietary advice is correct - why are there so many people who are about the same circumference as their height?
Fats are essential for good health - they break down into essential fatty acids - and many people have found that restricting carbohydrates is the thing to do - starting with William Banting, who was publishing his 'Letter on corpulence' a hundred years before Dr Atkins was becoming famous for weightloss.
I usually eat foods with 10 percent carbs or less, but do eat fruits with a bit more, but only in moderation. If you select less expensive cuts of meat and cheaper fish, avoid processed foods (they love to add starch to them) it is not an expensive way to eat.
A box of little blocks of the good stuff, thickly coated in batter or breadcrumbs or with a sludgy sauce usually costs more than the fresh unadulterated real food you really need, and it makes you hungry again quickly.

At the end of the day we need fat - I ended up with dry eyes years ago after doing the whole low fat thing - and unfortunately my eyes never recovered. I always know when I have not had enough omega 3's - my eyes feel awful! Think mackerel, smoked salmon - (with a side chaser of cream cheese) - yum!

As others have said above, the general rule is up to 10g carbs per 100g. (which is 10%) Ignore the "of which sugars" bit.

However, you also need to know how much of this product you are going to eat in one meal. You have to calculate the number of carbs you are going to eat, whatever the percentage might be.

If it is a condiment, for example, and you are only going to eat a teaspoonful, you can afford to have a higher percentage of carbs. If you are going to eat it all and the packet contains 500g of food, you are going to eat 50g of carbs (10g x 5). So the general rule of 10g is only a starting point.

Some products also say the number of carbs in a serving - but you need to check what that serving is. Some foods such as sausages will say how many carbs per sausage. That makes life easier.

A useful thing to do is check the nutrition of the foods on your wish list before you shop. All the major supermarkets list all the packaged products they sell and include the nutrition details. Example:

https://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/default.aspx?id=255884599

(2 thirds the way down the page) I got this simply by Googling "Tesco tomato soup nutrition"

Unless you are very lucky, the dietitian and DN are likely to recommend the Eatwell Guide which is features large amounts of carbohydrates. Many of us on this forum ignore that advice and eat moderate to low carbs with a lot of success in controlling our diabetes. This website: https://www.dietdoctor.com/ will give you good ideas but if you can give up, or at least cut to the minimum, bread, potatoes, rice, pasta and anything sweet like cakes, biscuits etc you will be well on your way.

I just noticed that you said "unwaged". I admit that does add complication as carbohydrates are cheap. If you can make food from scratch you will avoid the added sugar in ready meals and save money. Try to have as much "above ground" veg as you can with cheaper cuts of meat. I am ok using lentils, butternut squash and swede instead of potatoes and they are fairly cheap.The idea with increasing fat is to have just enough to fill you up when you have removed the carbohydrates, not to gorge on the stuff.

Baldbilluk said:

I am starting to understand the rules now, Well Just About!!!!
Is there a standard amount of Carbohydrates I am suppose to eat per day (I have just eaten a can of soup and it was 16g of Carbo) and what about the sugar content, according to the can I have eaten 2.7g of sugar, so how am I "doing" on my diabetes diet, this is my first full day trying to understand eating so any general information would be appreciated, and I am trying my best....
Oh another wee thing, the rules about rice and pasta, if I eat wholemeal pasta and rice and bread (anything wholemeal) is that acceptable?

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You didn't eat 2.7g of sugar, you ate 16g of sugar I'm afraid. As said earlier, ignore the "of which sugar". Sugar is a carb and is included in the total. All carbs turn to sugar in the digestive process.

I say again, all carbs turn to sugar. That includes the wholemeal varieties. The wholemeal varieties take a bit longer, but still convert I'm afraid, and have the same amount of carb content as the non-wholemeal stuff..

Have you decided to buy a meter? If you had one you would know exactly what that can of soup did to your levels. You could also try the wholemeal foods and see what they do. Everyone reacts differently to the same foods and the same amounts of carbs. A meter will tell you how you react.

Hi and welcome!

Have a look at this link. It explains in 60 seconds how to lower you carbs to control your blood glucose.
https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/60-seconds
If you don't want to eat a lot of fat, then don't.
You can eat lots of fresh healthy veg (just not a lot of root veg) and you can eat fruit, just not the very sweet tropical fruits.
But please ensure you eat ENOUGH good quality fat and oil to keep your skin, brain and organs healthy. It is an essential macronutrient.

If you get yourself a blood glucose meter, and start testing your blood glucose before and after food you will very quickly find which foods send your blood glucose high, and which foods keep it nice and low and stable.

The comment about 15 g of sugar in the soup is because all carbs break down to sugars when we digest them. It doesn't matter if they start out as bread, rice, potato, pasta, sweet fruit, or sugar itself. By the time the food has been digested and absorbed into the bloodstream, 15g carbs of which 2.4g is sugar has become 15g of glucose in the blood. The labels are misleading, but our blood glucose meters show us the truth.

Incidentally, sorry to break the bad news, a big apple can be up to 30g of carb, and a medium one is somewhere around 12-15g carbs, so please don't count on it being just 5g
https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/fruits

Baldbilluk said:

I have only just bought the glucose meter and its not been delivered yet, will not come till later this week/early next week, so that is why I was asking for advice just now? Sorry you might have misunderstood it said on the can it was 2.4g per half can (just noticed it on the label) so I have eaten 4.8g of sugar, I think that is about the same as an apple, so is this any better, as I have said i have not seen a dietician or DN yet so I am trying not to make mistakes!!!!

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Great that your meter is on its way, and of course you must ask these questions. Ask as many as you like.

Are you saying the total sugars in the whole can was 4.8g? And the total carbs was 16g? And you ate the whole can?

If that is the case, you actually ate 16g of sugar because all the carb content will convert to sugar once in the digestive system. You must try to ignore any sugar content. It is the carb content that matters. Any sugar content (4.8g) is included in the carb total. It isn't separate.

Baldbilluk said:

I keep on thinking that its a serperate issue ie thought that carbo count and sugar count were different, now you will understand that I NEED to see a dietician , so if I replace the word carbohydrate with sugar (mentally) is that that the same thing, because it makes it easier to understand, ie does the carbo count mean the same as the sugar count (after being converted)? and I can try to eat some "negative foods" and use my glucose meter to see "how I get on" and then "cross if off my eating list" if it spikes my glucose reading

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Yes!!! That is exactly it. Think of carbs and sugar as the same thing. Just go by the amount of carbs. IGNORE the sugar content.

Just as a warning, if and when you see a dietician or a nurse, you will most likely be even more confused. They will most likely tell you to eat as many carbs as you like as long as they are wholemeal ones. This is not good advice for any diabetic.

There is a lot of shouting about sugar at the moment, but for a diabetic the important number is the total carbohydrate as that is what is digested, absorbed and becomes sugar in the blood. We can't deal with it in the usual way, so it builds up and can cause damage.
Carbohydrates are all the digestible sugars and starches in food - but your meter should show you that if you eat foods low in carbs you do not spike your blood glucose levels.
Although i have read how expensive eating a low carb diet is it is often down to eating the expensive things - salmon rather than kippers or tuna, chicken breast fillets rather than thighs, steak rather than shin - though sometimes there are bargains to be had marked down in supermarkets.

It is a bit like running up the down escalator - you might get to the top eventually but you will have expended a lot of effort getting there, when you could have stepped onto the one going up and assumed a nonchalant pose as you were carried in the direction you wished to go.

Baldbilluk said:

Eureka!!!!!!! I have learned something today, and do you know it's opened a wee door for me to understand what I am suppose to do, the rest I think will "follow on" hopefully?????
Now how about the second question about assessing other foods, is it a good idea to "sample the negative foods" and then do a glucose reading or is that a bad idea, its just I love pasta. rice... the sweet things I can ignore but just for "standard foods" and what if i do a lot of exercising after or before eating these would that help?

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It is highly likely that pasta and rice will be off your menu for at least the time being. When your meter comes, test these out for yourself and you will see. I don't understand what you mean by "negative foods". Do you mean ones with zero carbs in? If so you are looking mainly at meat and fish, some dairy foods, and not much else. Even lettuce has the odd carb or two.