Carbs and cals app

[Eponine]

Do people work out their carbs by what the app states or what's on the packaging.
I have a cake that states 22 carbs per 100g, but the app states 21 carbs per 40g. Big difference.
Love the app it's really useful and helped me with loosing nearly a stone in 5 weeks

 

[rebrascora]

Do people work out their carbs by what the app states or what's on the packaging.
I have a cake that states 22 carbs per 100g, but the app states 21 carbs per 40g. Big difference.
Love the app it's really useful and helped me with loosing nearly a stone in 5 weeks

Which cake is it?
22g carbs per 100g seems pretty low carb for a cake but perhaps it is a special low carb cake? Are you sure you are not reading 22g sugar per 100g rather than total carbs?

 

[Lucyr]

What cake and what app? Never seen a packaged cake with 22g carbs per 100g, they’re usually at least 50% carbs so 21g carbs per 40g portion sounds more likely correct.

 

[Docb]

@Eponine, you need always to remember that carb contents on packets are estimates only and can be wildly out.

Anything which looks particularly low (and 20g per 100g for a commercial cake looks particularly low) is best not used to calculate carbs unless the cake has been specially formulated to make it low carb. If it has, then it will be high lighted on the packaging and be significantly more expensive than other cakes because it will have been made in small batches from comparatively expensive ingredients.

The carbs and cals books and apps will have the same problem, in that they again are estimates but one might expect them not to be wildly wrong because you might hope they will put a bit more effort into making sure the information they present is more representative.

 

[Sally71]

I would use the information on the packet if there is any, and only use Carbs and Cals if I have no other information. Carbs and Cals can only give you an estimate based on similar things, they don’t know the exact recipe of the item you have. Packet information should be better, although as @Docb says, even that isn’t deadly accurate, not all cakes are exactly the same size, or with the same amount of icing on, you can’t even guarantee that the recipe contains exactly the same amount of all the ingredients each time they make it. But it’s the best estimate you will get unless you’ve made it yourself. Then make sure you’ve understood the packet properly as that can be a bit of a minefield, make sure you are reading the total carbs and not just the sugars, and that you’ve understood whether it’s per 100g or per portion, and then how big is the portion etc.

 

[Eponine]

Thanks so much for your replies, I am learning so much about this minefield. But this will make you laugh, its 48 not 21 that was the fat content, what a novice Carbs and cals app seems to be swings and roundabouts as they say, what I gain on 1 I loose on another. But monitoring what I eat is definitely working on the weight loss thankfully.