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Hello

R

RTN

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
Diabetic. Type 2 for (Lord knows) 34 years. All WAS good. Levels excellent to very good, diet very good, excercise erm, not too bad…..Then in February 25 for legitimate reasons too boring to relate here, my medication and treatment were changed. I’m struggling with insulin only control for the first time.
Has anyone any advice on where I can obtain a simple list of foods and their carb value?
I’m not interested in recipes.
Preferably as simple as
Apple x grams xx carbs
Banana x grams xx carbs
Etc
Thank you
Robert Newall
 
RTN said:
Diabetic. Type 2 for (Lord knows) 34 years. All WAS good. Levels excellent to very good, diet very good, excercise erm, not too bad…..Then in February 25 for legitimate reasons too boring to relate here, my medication and treatment were changed. I’m struggling with insulin only control for the first time.
Has anyone any advice on where I can obtain a simple list of foods and their carb value?
I’m not interested in recipes.
Preferably as simple as
Apple x grams xx carbs
Banana x grams xx carbs
Etc
Thank you
Robert Newall
Click to expand...
I don't know whether there's a list anywhere but if you look up any item on supermarket online ordering sites, and scroll down to Nutrition, it's all there. I've got this info on a spreadsheet for everything I regularly eat.

I don't eat bananas but they're around 20g per 100g according to Sainsbury's, and my apple of choice - Royal Gala - around 12g per 100g.
 
Last edited:
Why thank you Martin
I'm afraid that creating such a spreadsheet using info on-line and per product was to be my task this morning. Until I thought "there MUST be a simpler way". Looks like there isn't? I suppose that's because there are only 64 people (I'm being sarcastic) in the whole of the UK who need the information. Best regards, Robert
BTW Thanks for the apple info. How, just how, can you not eat bananas
 
If you haven't seen it this is a useful list of foods to include in your spreadsheet:

There is a very comprehensive list of what you want and much more giving all the values and more at the USDA website.

I do it it the other way round with Cronometer (cronometer.com), a very good app for tracking nutrition. Select what you want/are going to eat/have eaten and enter the weight. It has the USDA database and others on its server does all the label lookups and calculations for you. But then I'm Type 2 in remission not on insulin.
 
I don’t know of a website but the Carbs and Cals book and app list the carbs in common foods and meals.
I believe there is a cost for both now but many people swear by one of the other.
However, I found the spreadsheet approach suited me better. I had a column for carbs per 100g, a column to enter the weighed amount I was going to eat and a calculated column for the carbs. I the had sum of the last column to work out the total carbs in my meal or snack.
I just built up my spreadsheet as I went along rather than trying to think of everything I eat.
 
I got the carbs and Cals book free from hospital. I also have the app, which you have to pay for once a year. I find I use app more, just weigh food and enter weight it works out the carbs for you. Good for eating out as well
 
RTN said:
How, just how, can you not eat bananas
Click to expand...
Bananas were one of my favourite fruits pre-diagnosis but at 20% carbohydrate, almost all of it sugar, I consider them to be a no-no since I adopted a <130g per day low carb diet. My breakfast bowl of berries, crushed walnuts and Greek yogurt has nowhere near as many carbs as a single banana.
 
Hello @RTN

There are other less fully featured carb books too. Carbs and Cals is very comprehensive and very much the forum go-to, and the app offers ongoing updates for the yearly subscription, but there are other more modest basic options. Back in the day Collins Gem used to do a pocket-sized Calorie Counter that had per 100g carb values ot a wide variety of foods.

The internet (and food packaging) can also furnish you with the basics for staples in your store cupboard.

Diet-tracking apps (I think NutriCheck is a UK-based one) can also offer helpful lists I think?

Welcome to the forum 🙂
 
I've had a counting app on my phone but I was counting calories I've just changed it to count Carbs, you type in medium pink lady and it will tell you exactly how many cabs in that apple. The app £27 for a year and worth every penny
 
In response to the question of exactly how you stop eating bananas as far as a lot of us are concerned is to test their blood glucose right at that moment then eat a banana, sit on their arse and do nowt for an hour and then test their blood glucose again and see for themselves how mega high that banana has sent it. So they test half hourly for the next few hours to see how long it stays high.

Then (in my case) never buy a banana again!
 
What if I saved bananas for gym days?

Trouble with me is I've got very low potassium and the GP has told to eat a banana a day. He's phoning me Friday to tell me where we go from here as my last blood test showed it a really low again. Can't win
 
Ian Robinson said:
What if I saved bananas for gym days?

Trouble with me is I've got very low potassium and the GP has told to eat a banana a day. He's phoning me Friday to tell me where we go from here as my last blood test showed it a really low again. Can't win
Click to expand...
If you do an internet search for high potassium foods there are many which have more potassium than bananas and are low carb.
 
Ian Robinson said:
What if I saved bananas for gym days?

Trouble with me is I've got very low potassium and the GP has told to eat a banana a day. He's phoning me Friday to tell me where we go from here as my last blood test showed it a really low again. Can't win
Click to expand...
He might recommend a supplement. H&B is one place that sells them but they also advise against taking them without a doctor's agreement.
 
A friend of mine who used to teach first aid has just told me it is not all about carbs it also about sodium and trans fats is this right?
 
Ian Robinson said:
A friend of mine who used to teach first aid has just told me it is not all about carbs it also about sodium and trans fats is this right?
Click to expand...
Sodium chloride as in salt is something that is easy to have too much because of it's effect on blood pressure but everybody needs some salt for their electrolyte balance. When people cut down on pre-prepared foods which are often high in salt they are actually short of salt in their diet.
Fats are not converted to glucose so eating healthy fats is recommended and can actually improve cholesterol levels as can following a low carb regime.
 
Ian Robinson said:
A friend of mine who used to teach first aid has just told me it is not all about carbs it also about sodium and trans fats is this right?
Click to expand...
What is? Diabetes or low Potassium?
 
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