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Bananas and grapefruit

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R

Radders

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
I've got a clever set of scales that tell me the carb content of things, and I have the carbs and calories bible. They give inconsistent info. I wasn't sure whether the values on my scales for the above fruit were with or without skin so I weighed a grapefruit with and without peel. According to the scales it had 29g carbs when weighed with skin, according to c&c 24g. Both rather high I thought. After peeling it, the same grapefruit weighed 25% less and according to C&c was only 15g carbs which is what I would have estimated, but the scales still reckoned 23g.
I get similar confusion with bananas. If you eat either type of fruit, how many carbs do you allow for?
 
If the picture in carbs and cals is with skin/peel then the carbs are weight with skin
 
I would assume that the scales have a set of values per 100g of a food item which is than weighed and the scales do the appropriate calculation. The skin of grapefruit vary a lot and also white grapefruit has a different set of values to pink or red. So I would assume it was very innacurate to determine the carbs in a whole grapefruit. If you look at the values in the 'Fat Secret' (https://www.fatsecret.com/calories-nutrition/food/grapefruit/carbohydrate) then california Grapefruit has a lot more carbs than Florida grapefruit 24 against 18g for pink and red and 11g against 10g for white grapefruit.
I am sure if you put 100gram iron weight on your scales it will tell you it has 20g carbs in it!!

A banana is probably a lot more consistant in skin thickness (most desert bananas are the same family, Cavendish) so it would depend on what you scales and c&c used with skin or without. It also varies according to ripeness which as far as I know does not affect the weight. (Plantains have more carbs than bananas)
I don't carb count as such but the fatsecret recons 20g per 100g banana (which as it's called serving size means without skin).
 
I think you will find the scales come with a warning regarding the accuracy of the food values.
Years ago I had a set from Lloyds and took them back because the carb values were way out
 
Weighing the banana without skin seems to give a reasonable result, the grapefruit was still on the high side though. The scales I used before were better: you could type in the first few letters and search for foods. With the new one you have to use codes from a book so I have to search out my reading glasses to use it!
 
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