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Food Labels & Diabetes - new petition!

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This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
DaveB, I was told that starchy carbs are rice, potatoes & pasta. The reason given to me is they fill you up with a gradual release of glucose & help prevent snacking between meals. I did try a few times, over the 17 years I’ve been T2, to cut down on eating starchy carbs but, found myself eating more & blood sugars going up so, went back to eating them. But, that was when I was on tablets. I’ve been on insulin for the last 6 years.

Since finding out about carb counting etc. on these forums, I’m finding that cutting down on carbs does indeed help the diabetes. I didn’t intentionally do that, though as it came about slowly & naturally when I cut all Sweeteners from my diet. I posted about it under the newbies forum.

I’ve been keeping a food diary, alongside a blood sugar diary, to show my hospital team on 22/03/18. I had a lot of hypos recently, 8 in 10 days, & my Novorapid doses were almost halved. I just counted up calories, as I didn’t know about carbs then. But, I’ve since looked up & added in the carbs. I’ve noticed that on the occasional very high after meal blood sugars I ate more carbs.

I have the written proof now & will be interested to see what my hospital team will think & say.
 
Starchy carbs turn to glucose very quickly & modern day food is so processed, even wholemeal versions, that they are terrible for diabetics.
 
Mark Parrott said:
Starchy carbs turn to glucose very quickly & modern day food is so processed, even wholemeal versions, that they are terrible for diabetics.
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Just about that wholemeal version, I have a friend whose husband had a bicycle in the back room, he had it rigged to grind wheat berries and rye, &c. No diabetes, just really interested in whole foods, grown organic.
Dedicated. 🙂
 
SadhbhFiadh said:
Just about that wholemeal version, I have a friend whose husband had a bicycle in the back room, he had it rigged to grind wheat berries and rye, &c. No diabetes, just really interested in whole foods, grown organic.
Dedicated. 🙂
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I will do that sort of thing when I move to Hungary.🙂
 
Mark Parrott said:
Starchy carbs turn to glucose very quickly & modern day food is so processed, even wholemeal versions, that they are terrible for diabetics.
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I suppose the problem is that modern food preparation techniques made highly refined starchy product with a small quantity of starch-resistant starches, and wholemeal in industrially processed food is made with a mix of refined ingredients that make too easier digest them
 
SadhbhFiadh said:
Just about that wholemeal version, I have a friend whose husband had a bicycle in the back room, he had it rigged to grind wheat berries and rye, &c. No diabetes, just really interested in whole foods, grown organic.
Dedicated. 🙂
Click to expand...
Normally these hacks are made with rescued washing machine motors. Don't know if using electricity made it less organic. I have also seen a mill designed to be driven by a tractor PTO... http://www.newconceptindustries.com/ptorollermill.html
 
Or they could set a minimum size for the text on the back of all packages so that they are easy to read. Sometimes the carb content is miniscule and very difficult to read.
 
Oh, I know C&E Guy! That’s so annoying! So, I put a pair magnifying reading glasses +2.5 in my handbag to put on to read labels when buying food: stronger than my reading glasses of +1.5. 🙄
 
What I have an issue with is the somewhat misleading statments about some noodles, pasta telling the content of the fully prepared product leaving you to work back how many carbs are in the dry version you start with.

It's probably just as well that they are currently on my "Do not even think about eating this" list for now.
 
But what do you add to Pasta to cook it? Water.

Water is carb free last time I looked.:D
 
In fact, the carb count of cooked pasta is slightly lower than dry because some of the starch comes out into the water. That’s why the water looks slightly milky when you drain it.
 
Yes but for Beachelors Supernoolds noodles it says - for 100g pack there are 22.8g of carb per 100g.

Thats looks pretty until you realise that actually 22.8g / 100 "as prepared".

( this is not so good an example as they actually say 1/2 pack is 150g = 34.2g - prepared - most don't do this )

That 300 prepared 20g in a pack is really 68.4g

So really the pack has 68.4g of carb unprepared.

I could cope happily with a 23g meal of carbs - 70g would send my BG up to 15mmol/l or above.
 
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An issue for me is Diabetic Dieticians not knowing what we should be doing when we read food labels. One told a support group to look at the traffic light for sugars. She had no idea why anyone should be looking on the back at total carbohydrates instead.
Another Diabetic Dieticians on a label reading session told us to not bother reading the sugars, as it is included in the total carbohydrates. Just look at toal carbohydrates.
Confusion among diabetics is made worse by HCP on such matters.
 
I've just had a nutritional info fail. My local garden centre does pre packed gluten free brownies. They have nutritional info on the back - all 'per 100g' But NOWHERE on the pack does it tell you how much the actual brownie weighs. Rendering the information USELESS! So, it was down to guesswork again. I have emailed their customer services, and will report back if I get an answer!
image.jpeg
 
I'm sure there will be lots of packs with unhelpful, misleading information like that on them.

You sometimes need to carry a calculator to check the "per unit" scores rather than the whole pack.
 
C&E Guy said:
I'm sure there will be lots of packs with unhelpful, misleading information like that on them.

You sometimes need to carry a calculator to check the "per unit" scores rather than the whole pack.
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I can normally do a rough calculation in my head, but in this case, I needed to be carrying a set of weighing scales!😱🙂
 
Well, I've had a reply of sorts. They are 'passing it on' I won't hold my breath....

'We would like to apologies for the inconvenience caused due to the label on the gluten free brownie not having full information allowing you to make an informed decision.

I have passed your feedback to our food and beverage central team to look into. We really don’t like our customers to leave our centres disappointed, in fact, we want our customers to be delighted with the service we give and products we offer, and to leave with some great ideas on how to make their gardens even better.'
 
Food labelling on packages!!! Over the past few years that I have been Diabetic this has truly driven me mad. I can only sympathise with everyone and know the frustrations of trying to read labels in the supermarkets.
Is it to much to ask for it to be printed clearly (preferably in a size of print that is readable) and completely standardised? Personally I prefer it to be listed in a chart/grid rather than written in a single paragraph.
 
Robin said:
I've just had a nutritional info fail. My local garden centre does pre packed gluten free brownies. They have nutritional info on the back - all 'per 100g' But NOWHERE on the pack does it tell you how much the actual brownie weighs. Rendering the information USELESS! So, it was down to guesswork again. I have emailed their customer services, and will report back if I get an answer!
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Thanks for sharing this @Robin - that's a very good example of a unhelpful label. If anyone else has seen anything similarly useless please do share it here, or send it through to diabetesvoices@diabetes.org.uk 🙂
 
Stefan Diabetes UK said:
Thanks for sharing this @Robin - that's a very good example of a unhelpful label. If anyone else has seen anything similarly useless please do share it here, or send it through to diabetesvoices@diabetes.org.uk 🙂
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Almost all similarly sized snack in my experience @Stefan Diabetes UK!

Admittedly we know when buying these that they are not the easiest choices BG wise, but most of those cake/flapjack/snackbar things that get sold alongside coffee have per 100g carbs and no weight.

Sainsbury's infuriated me beyone belief a year or two ago where they listed 'per 100g' for everything, but only flagged up 'per portion' for sugar, fat etc on the fronts in big lettering. Again, often with no weight involved. So you had to use the per portion far and the per 100g fat to work out the portion size then use the per 100g carbs to calculate the per portion carbs.

Per portion sugar is next to useless when whatever it is is made of highly refined flour, but the emphasis is so much on 'sugar tax' and 'sugar is bad' these days that carbs are getting let off scot free 😡
 
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