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Hi again SharonAnn, hope you have some helpful information now, with carby food it does depend on total carb content and portion size of food items that are high in carbs.
I can recommend the Carbs & Cals book/s for guidance, but I do also use google. 🙂
Trust you enjoyed your meal.
As far as I could make out, you cannot actually measure carb content of anything, it is assumed that what is left when you have measured all the things you can measure, must be carb. Also, the, numbers you see on packets are not measured values for that product. They are estimates based on what has gone into it. The numbers have errors but nobody tells you what those errors are.
Scientists have developed methods to determine how calories are calculated
www.livescience.com
"the FDA allows for a 20 percent margin of error for nutrients listed on a food label, including calories"
"But even if the calorie label had no margin of error, "[this method] does not take into account the digestive process, but assumes complete conversion of nutrients to energy," Macdonald said. "That doesn't happen in humans, although our bodies are pretty efficient at recovering energy from food."
I don't like to talk about accuracy, i prefer to talk about reproducibility and precision. Just like the finger prick glucose meter, numbers on packet labels are nowhere near as precise as implied by the numbers quoted. They are all subject to error which is much bigger than most appreciate.
The errors do not mean the information is useless. Far from it. They can be used with confidence to make good broad decisions. What you cannot do is use them to try and fine tune things. Well,you can, but its more for fun than anything.
Hi @sharonann. I have a technical/scientific background and as a consequence look on this carb thing slightly different to many. If you look into it you will find that the carb numbers you see quoted are very much guesswork, sometimes the best guess by people who know their stuff and sometimes not. As far as I could make out, you cannot actually measure carb content of anything, it is assumed that what is left when you have measured all the things you can measure, must be carb. Also, the, numbers you see on packets are not measured values for that product. They are estimates based on what has gone into it. The numbers have errors but nobody tells you what those errors are.
What this means is that although it can be great fun to try and work out carb values and effect of substitutes, you will not get very far. You will get most of the way by reducing the "big hitters" in your diet (typically potatoes, cereal flour based products, and ripe fruits) and not worry too much about the other stuff from a carb viewpoint.
