The carb counting thread

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sofaraway

sofaraway

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So I've started this thread up. I'll start and then everyone can add bit's to it.

Carbohydrates are one of the food groups which are usually referred to as carbs for ease. There are 2 types of carbs, starches and sugars, when we look at food packets it's important to take into account total number of carbs as all carbs impact blood sugar.

examples of foods that contain carbs are bread, pasta, potatoes, sweets, fruit, biscuits.

The way to find out how many grams of carbs in a food is to look at the back of the packet. Usually it will be listed per 100g and/or per serving size. Serving size is usually more useful, because it's what you will actually be eating.

Alternatively there are books that list carb values of different food such as this one
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Carb-Counte...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263377882&sr=8-1

Ok next person
 
The website www.glycemicindex.com might help. It is worth an explore and there are a couple of books available if you want them.
 
sofaraway said:
Alternatively there are books that list carb values of different food such as this one
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Carb-Counte...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263377882&sr=8-1

Ok next person
Click to expand...

I'm fairly sure Collins also produce a pocket version of this book, or it may be that one, never been any good at cm to inches 🙄

But either way, of all the books I've looked at and owned it is superb, as it's so small you can carry it with you.

A lot of fast food places now, sorry I can't call them restaurants, as there you'd expect table service, in fast food joints, service is hard enough to find... however, you will find they very often publish the carb content of their food, certainly Subway (superb in my opinion), MucDonalds (name says it all) and KFC (slobbering now) all publish their contents.

So if you have to get dragged in by the kids, you have a good idea 😉

The other critical thing in my opinion is a pair of reasonable scales, personally I prefer digital as setting them to zero when you put a plate or dish on them is a push of a button. I still weigh all uncooked ingredients, I am terrible at estimating the weight of something on a plate.

I've had two sets of the intelligent scales with built in carbs, however, they are more work than they are worth (in my opinion) and as the packets have the carb contents on them, a small calculator or pen and pencil will allow you to work out the total content if you can't do it in your head.

That's about the extent of my knowledge - one book and a pair of scales, the mental arithmetic is good brain exercise :D
 
HURRAH! favouritig this thread!

i have the pocket carb book :D
 
salmonpuff said:
HURRAH! favouritig this thread!

i have the pocket carb book :D
Click to expand...

How did I know you'd be here? I didn't even get time to start taking bets on how long it would take you Sam :D
 
As someone who missed percentages in school, it's also probably worth just saying the basics: if something says x amount of carb per 100g...then a direct way to find the carb of whatever you are weighing is to multiply it by x expressed in decimals.

So if something is 8g of carb per 100g, then you multiply your amount of the item (which you have weighed in grams) by .08 - the answer is the amount of carb for that bit of your meal.

If something is 42g of carb per 100g, then you multiply your amount of the items (which you have weighed in grams) by .42, and the answer is the amount of carb for that bit.

Obviously some of these become routine and easy, like 25g of carb per 100g becomes dividing your amount in grams by 4 and calling that the carb. Etc. My own mental maths are not great, so I only do this in the most rudimentary of ways: eg if we have served up 200g of new potatoes (15g of carb per 100g) for E, I am at least able to ascertain that the carb for that is 30g!

(OH and my son on the other hand, are *really* skilled at mental maths, and can come up with numbers before I've even punched it all into the calculator...Ergh.)

Sorry if this is deeply obvious to every person in the world!
 
Patricia said:
As someone who missed percentages in school, it's also probably worth just saying the basics: if something says x amount of carb per 100g...then a direct way to find the carb of whatever you are weighing is to multiply it by x expressed in decimals.

So if something is 8g of carb per 100g, then you multiply your amount of the item (which you have weighed in grams) by .08 - the answer is the amount of carb for that bit of your meal.

If something is 42g of carb per 100g, then you multiply your amount of the items (which you have weighed in grams) by .42, and the answer is the amount of carb for that bit.

Obviously some of these become routine and easy, like 25g of carb per 100g becomes dividing your amount in grams by 4 and calling that the carb. Etc. My own mental maths are not great, so I only do this in the most rudimentary of ways: eg if we have served up 200g of new potatoes (15g of carb per 100g) for E, I am at least able to ascertain that the carb for that is 30g!

(OH and my son on the other hand, are *really* skilled at mental maths, and can come up with numbers before I've even punched it all into the calculator...Ergh.)

Sorry if this is deeply obvious to every person in the world!
Click to expand...


I was thinking it is a great way to learn about percentages and do maths. My grown up son is always better with sums he can see a practical use for...

Sometimes things are not obvious until someone else says this is obvious and explains how to do it.
 
Patricia said:
As someone who missed percentages in school, it's also probably worth just saying the basics: if something says x amount of carb per 100g...then a direct way to find the carb of whatever you are weighing is to multiply it by x expressed in decimals.

So if something is 8g of carb per 100g, then you multiply your amount of the item (which you have weighed in grams) by .08 - the answer is the amount of carb for that bit of your meal.

If something is 42g of carb per 100g, then you multiply your amount of the items (which you have weighed in grams) by .42, and the answer is the amount of carb for that bit.

Obviously some of these become routine and easy, like 25g of carb per 100g becomes dividing your amount in grams by 4 and calling that the carb. Etc. My own mental maths are not great, so I only do this in the most rudimentary of ways: eg if we have served up 200g of new potatoes (15g of carb per 100g) for E, I am at least able to ascertain that the carb for that is 30g!

(OH and my son on the other hand, are *really* skilled at mental maths, and can come up with numbers before I've even punched it all into the calculator...Ergh.)

Sorry if this is deeply obvious to every person in the world!
Click to expand...

There you go Patricia, you're teaching maths already :D

Seriously, good point and explained well, I do it off the top of my head, sure there are many who can't or don't. Hence saying about the paper and pencil or even a calculator.
 
Einstein said:
The other critical thing in my opinion is a pair of reasonable scales, personally I prefer digital as setting them to zero when you put a plate or dish on them is a push of a button. I still weigh all uncooked ingredients, I am terrible at estimating the weight of something on a plate.

I've had two sets of the intelligent scales with built in carbs, however, they are more work than they are worth (in my opinion) and as the packets have the carb contents on them, a small calculator or pen and pencil will allow you to work out the total content if you can't do it in your head.

That's about the extent of my knowledge - one book and a pair of scales, the mental arithmetic is good brain exercise :D
Click to expand...

I definitely agree with this - a good pair of scales is a must. One other thing I do I keep a small notice board in the kitchen with the carb counts of meals we have regularly. So for things like pasta bake, shepherd's pie etc that we make the same way, I don't have to sit and work out the carbs each time. 🙂

I also think that the Bournemouth site (http://www.bdec-e-learning.com/) is a a good start to learning to carb count.
 
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