Potatoes ?

[Colm]

Hi, Question about carbs in potatoes. is there a difference in the carb content of a boiled or baked potato, than there would be if it was chopped up into chips ?
I keep seeing different answers on the web, some say the cab content is 30g per 100, some say 15g per 100. so does anyone know the carb content of a rooster potato, chopped into chips, and cooked in the oven please?
and is is different if its just boiled?

Thanks
C.

 

[Lucyr]

Just look up the carb content of a raw potato, weigh it raw then use that.

 

[Robin]

Hi, Question about carbs in potatoes. is there a difference in the carb content of a boiled or baked potato, than there would be if it was chopped up into chips ?
I keep seeing different answers on the web, some say the cab content is 30g per 100, some say 15g per 100. so does anyone know the carb content of a rooster potato, chopped into chips, and cooked in the oven please?
and is is different if its just boiled?

Thanks
C.

The same potato will have the same carb content, regardless of how it is chopped up or cooked.
Confusion sometimes arises when carbs listed on websites take the cooked weight of something and not the raw weight. Potatoes that are fried or baked often lose moisture while they cook, or absorb fat, so they don’t weigh the same at the end of the cooking process as they did at the beginning.
Its simpler, as @Lucyr says, to weigh the raw potato, look up the carb content of raw potato and use that weight/carb content for your calculations.
The only difference might be if you’ve got small new potatoes, in spring when they are freshly dug, which tend to be lower in carbs per weight because they have a higher water content.

 

[Inka]

Hi, Question about carbs in potatoes. is there a difference in the carb content of a boiled or baked potato, than there would be if it was chopped up into chips ?
I keep seeing different answers on the web, some say the cab content is 30g per 100, some say 15g per 100. so does anyone know the carb content of a rooster potato, chopped into chips, and cooked in the oven please?
and is is different if its just boiled?

Thanks
C.

If you take a potato and boil it, mash it, roast it, chip it, sauté it, the carbs will be the same.

 

[Colm]

The same potato will have the same carb content, regardless of how it is chopped up or cooked.
Confusion sometimes arises when carbs listed on websites take the cooked weight of something and not the raw weight. Potatoes that are fried or baked often lose moisture while they cook, or absorb fat, so they don’t weigh the same at the end of the cooking process as they did at the beginning.
Its simpler, as @Lucyr says, to weigh the raw potato, look up the carb content of raw potato and use that weight/carb content for your calculations.
The only difference might be if you’ve got small new potatoes, in spring when they are freshly dug, which tend to be lower in carbs per weight because they have a higher water content.

Hi, Thanks for the reply,
looking up the carb content of raw potatoes, I find you get different answers, that's my point, some web sites say 15 or 16g per 100, and others say 30g per 100, whos telling the truth? 🙂 how many carbs are in potatoes per 100g ?

Thanks again
C

 

[Lucyr]

Where are you finding 30g for 100g raw potato? Sure you’re not looking at cooked?

 

[bulkbiker]

Hi, Thanks for the reply,
looking up the carb content of raw potatoes, I find you get different answers, that's my point, some web sites say 15 or 16g per 100, and others say 30g per 100, whos telling the truth? 🙂 how many carbs are in potatoes per 100g ?

Thanks again
C

Quick supermarket website check implies 15-20g per 100g guessing difference will depend on the variety of spud.
Personally I just don't eat them at all...ever.

 

[Colm]

dont confuse me more...are you saying its different when they are cooked?

 

[Inka]

@Colm I use ounces for potatoes because it’s easier to remember: 2oz of raw potato equals 10g carbs, a 4oz potato is 20g carbs, a 6oz is 30g carbs, etc.

100g is 3.527oz - so approx 17.6g carbs per 100g raw potato

 

[Lucyr]

dont confuse me more...are you saying its different when they are cooked?

Of course it’s different when cooked since 100g raw potato won’t weigh 100g when cooked. That’s why everyone said to weigh it raw.

 

[Inka]

This was your question:

is there a difference in the carb content of a boiled or baked potato, than there would be if it was chopped up into chips ?

So my answer was No - whatever you do with your 100g raw potato, the carbs remain the same. However, what is different possibly is the carbs in 100g of cooked potato because, depending on the cooking method, it will lose more or less water. As Lucy said, it’s best to use the raw weight eg if you were making a cottage pie, weigh your raw potatoes and note the carbs. Then mash them, make your pie and if you have a quarter of the pie, divide your original raw potato carb amount by 4. If you make chips, weigh your raw potatoes, work out the carbs, then make the chips and do a similar division if they’re more than one portion.

 

[Leadinglights]

Carbs and Cals lists potatoes cooked in various ways with their carb value and pictures of portions. Annoyingly the portion sizes are not consistent so a bit of arithmetic needed.

 

[Deleted member 21371]

Average between 15 to 20g for 100g of most raw potatoes.

How you cook it affects that 100g though. Boil it, it stay the same, or even get heavier, oven bake it, it'll dry out and get lighter.
So the carb content per 100g of served product will change.

 

[barrym]

One thing that does change depending on how the potatoes are cooked is the GI. That is how quickly those carbs hit your blood.

Mashed is pretty quick I believe, jacket pretty slow. Depends on how much fat you take with it. I'm not sure you can put a rule to it, just try it and see how you go.

FWIW If I have a jacket (with probably too much butter, I'd bolus after and not before the meal otherwise I'd probably hypo before the carbs kicked in.

YMMV

 

[Lucyr]

Carbs and Cals lists potatoes cooked in various ways with their carb value and pictures of portions. Annoyingly the portion sizes are not consistent so a bit of arithmetic needed.

I have the option to type in my own weight so that no arithmetic is needed. Do you not have that option? Or are you working from a physical book?

 

[Leadinglights]

I have the option to type in my own weight so that no arithmetic is needed. Do you not have that option? Or are you working from a physical book?

I just have the book and just work it out, usually good enough for me.

 

[Docb]

Brilliant question @Colm. At least I think it is brilliant because it is the sort of question that you might think ought to have a precise answer but in reality doesn't.

As I have suggested before, as far as I could see, the carb content of anything is a bit of a guess. Its even worse when it comes to the humble spud (an example I have used before) where there are lots of varieties, grown under different conditions, in different countries with different climatic conditions and eaten after different periods of storage under different conditions after being cooked by any one of a number of different methods. All those things will have some effect on carb content and to make any sense of the carb content quoted you need to know all about the history of the spud in question and that is never given. Don't be taken in by the apparent precision in labels on packaging. A good guess is allowed in the regulations.

All you can say about spuds is that they are in the higher range when it comes to carb content. Does not matter whether they are whites, reds, roosters or whatever, whether they are boiled, roast, fried, au gratin, dauphinoise, or whatever, they will have a carb content that needs to be taken into account if you are a T1 requiring to bolus for a meal or aT2 using carb control to keep blood glucose under control.

You can weigh things out and look up values in tables and do complicated maths to figure out the what carb content might be under a given combination of circumstances but whatever the answer you get will be subject to quite a big error.

I say do not despair! The best way of dealing with spuds and other foods in the high carb range is to get good at knowing what the effect of those foods are on you such that you avoid some things and limit portions of others semi-automatically.

T1's generally as far as I can see eventually become very good at doing this, eyeballing a plate of food and judging their bolus with confidence. That just comes with experience after a few years of trial and error guided by some general assumptions.

It is where blood glucose monitoring comes into its own for a T2 - you can quickly figure out what things are problems and what are not. I very much doubt if you took a decent sized rooster, baked it, boiled it, roast it or chipped it you would see a consistent difference between the blood glucose rises from the different cooking methods.

The answer is nearly always in the numbers but you need an appreciation of the fuzzyness of the numbers to use them to good effect and not get lost in the fog.

 

[Inka]

@Colm is Type 1. As a Type 1, I weigh the food I cook at home @Docb as I described briefly above. Type 1s can eat a normal diet - it’s the insulin, not the food that causes ‘bad’ results. I weigh the food, apply my meal ratio plus/minus any other considerations (correction, exercise) then bolus at an appropriate point.

For diet only Type 2s it’s a different matter but their need to limit/monitor carbs is nothing like a Type 1 who ‘simply’ has to be their own pancreas. This week I’ve eaten baked potatoes, roast potatoes and oven chips. I had normal amounts of them.

 

[Docb]

Thanks for that caveat @Inka - I can get carried away and not always reflect accurately on the practical differences between T1 and T2.

Do you take the dry, uncooked weight and use standard carb levels that experience has shown you to have worked? For instance, are spuds just spuds to you without taking into account what variety they are or how they are cooked?

 

[Deleted member 21371]

Why do potatoes get such a bad rep?

I was reading a thread before that suggests substituting butter bean mash for example. Carbs in the mid teens.
The same as potatoes.
The average serving is around 100g, so the serving in going to provide 15g or so of carbs, the same as potatoes.
Even a portion of cauli mash can only save 10g or so, which isn't much in the standard 130g low carb diet.
Then mix that in with the rest of the meal that'll slow digestion.
Is it a GI thing, so a sweet potato should be better?
More fibre maybe?