Understanding food labels, do i have this right?

[Alloneword]

Afternoon all!
My control is pants and that's on a good day but i'm going to give it a go at controlling a wee bit more and i need to understand food labels a wee bit better.

If my understanding is right, say an item is 100g and (first off i only look at the carb levels) and it says 40g for 100g tin if i eat the whole tin does that work out to 10 cubes of sugar, i'm sure i read somewhere that 4g means 1 cube of sugar, do i have this method right or am i way off the mark, i did do something called Desmonds years ago but to be honest i have trouble remembering my own damm name sometimes let alone this kind of stuff.

All1

 

[Robin]

I just weighed a cube of sugar. It was indeed 4g!
For comparison, if you're talking about things like, white bread, white rice and pasta, mashed potato, or anything where the carb is very refined, they will go into your bloodstream as fast as a cube of sugar. Foods with carb that gets digested more slowly, like beans and lentils, whole grains, seeds, etc, you can probably eat without causing a spike in your blood glucose. Do you test your own blood glucose with a meter? That's the only way you'll find out whether your body can tolerate the carb content of a particular food or not.

 

[Alloneword]

Hi Robin thanks for the reply, all i have had all day is 3 white toast this morning about 10.30am 2 apples about 4.30pm and my blood is 19.7 😱, i'd rather i had a mars bars then 2 apples and score might be the same,
I do normaly have brown bread, but i can't eat seeds, lentils it's just not me, i have moved to brown pasta but it seems like so much sugar is in everything even a simple bowl of corn flakes (no sugar added), do you know if there is some kind of state funded cooking school to help us at the very least improve things, i'm willing to change but my food still has to taste nice or is it a life of eating cardboard?

All1

 

[trophywench]

There is no carbohydrate in any meat, fish, eggs, cheese and the amount in green veg (esp green leafy veg) is negligible. Spuds are heavy in carbs so need to be limited - but they aren't even tasty, especially mash which is the worst sort, carbohydrate wise.

3 rounds of toast (large thick sliced) is approx. 60g, or c.45g carb if it were large medium sliced. As an example being Type 1 and therefore having no insulin of my own at all, every 10g of carb increases my meter reading by 3.0 mmol/L. So that brekkie would have increased my meter reading by between 13.5 and 18.0. Assuming it was a perfect 4 before I ate this would result in either 17.5 or 22.00. A small bowl of cereal with scant milk is 30g carb increases it by 9.0 in comparison - but my husband regularly eats a larger bowl, with more milk so his portion would increase it by about 15.0 I bet.

On the other hand of course if I had a packet of bacon and half a dozen fried eggs - in theory my BG wouldn't move (but I'd be sick LOL) so I wouldn't have that much, I'd have a normal sized English breakfast (no beans or toast) - might sneak half a slice of fried bread with that or one hash brown, a whole fried tomato and a couple of sliced mushroom and it might increase by anything between 0.0 and 3.0/4.0. I don't like it personally but you could include a decent splodge of red or brown sauce with that No Prob.

I defy you to tell me that anything I've mentioned other than the white bread or mashed spuds tastes like cardboard !

Plus if you were hungry enough to eat 2 apples after eating all that stodge for breakfast - this means that it isn't keeping you FULL. It won't.

PROTEIN fills you up, and keeps you feeling full, for FAR longer than carbohydrates whatever they consist of.

 

[Mark Parrott]

Before I was diagnosed, I was a right pig. I would eat a whole box of jam tarts, two Belgian buns, loads of cereals & white bread. Oh, & chips! But all that had to change. Amazingly, it's been easier than expected. It's a matter if finding alternatives. If you can't give up the carbs, then try just cutting back. It's quite a long learning curve.

 

[robert@fm]

Instead of pasta, you could try courgetti (courgettes grated into spaghetti-style noodles -- Tesco sell them, also squash and carrot varieties).

 

[Lynn Davies]

If you're dead set on a traditional breakfast you could always have a bacon butty.

Do you have a Lidl nearby? They do a protein roll (triangle shape) which is only 11 carbs per roll. They're quite big so one would be enough. Butter it and fill with the bacon and bobs your uncle - best Sunday brekkie ever.

A large mug of coffee with full fat milk will keep you going till lunchtime with no spiking of the blood sugar.

Roast lunch with nearly all the trimmings - no tates or Yorkshires just yet (you can experiment with them once you've got your sugars under control)

Make sure you have enough to fill yourself up. You can work on portion control later.

Hope this is of some use to you.

 

[Alloneword]

There is no carbohydrate in any meat, fish, eggs, cheese and the amount in green veg (esp green leafy veg) is negligible. Spuds are heavy in carbs so need to be limited - but they aren't even tasty, especially mash which is the worst sort, carbohydrate wise.

Guess who just has mash for tea? Eggs/meat/chicken i can eat forever so that's good as for fish i only like is Tesco's Chunky Cod breaded fillets and that comes out as 19.5g per fillet and we have 2 each, is it that high because it's processed, and are you taking about RAW fish from the fishmonger?

On the other hand of course if I had a packet of bacon and half a dozen fried eggs - in theory my BG wouldn't move (but I'd be sick LOL) so I wouldn't have that much, I'd have a normal sized English breakfast (no beans or toast) - might sneak half a slice of fried bread with that or one hash brown, a whole fried tomato and a couple of sliced mushroom and it might increase by anything between 0.0 and 3.0/4.0.

Yea i was shocked when i looked at my baked beans in the cupboard tonight, it does seems carbs are the devils work and as others have said we need to find alternatives.

I defy you to tell me that anything I've mentioned other than the white bread or mashed spuds tastes like cardboard !

No it does not sound too bad but a few thing i can't eat in your list but not the end of the world.

PROTEIN fills you up, and keeps you feeling full, for FAR longer than carbohydrates whatever they consist of.

So if i was to work on more protein foods that would be better for me and my levels?

Mark like you i am a pig (was in your case) and do have a major eating disorder which i have had for about 40 years and to be honest i'm amazed i'm still alive given my general health.

Robert courgetti is out for me as i don't like courgettes.

Lynn to be honest i don't normally have breakfast, normally just go for lunch about 12.30 then tea at about 7pm, sunday lunch i normally have 2 or 3 roasties and a couple of yorkshires but i'm happy to dump them and just have more veg as i do like brussles, cauliflower, carrots, peas so that is not an issue. I was looking at moving to some other kind of bread, i have been using the brown bread with all those nuts and seeds in, makes me feel like i should be in a budgie cage eating seeds but i have tried, i was looking at pita bread or something like that, you know the stuff they use with kebabs etc but no idea on the numbers yet.

All1

 

[Lynn Davies]

I am afraid that the lowest carb breads have lots of seeds and some even have nuts!

You will have to consider making a change for the foreseeable future if you want to make a change to your blood glucose levels.

Breakfasts is the most important meal of the day. If you cannot eat much could you manage a couple of scrambled eggs. Quick and easy to make either on the stove top or in the microwave. The fat in the yolks will keep you full till lunchtime.

3 meals a day will keep you topped up and stop you from getting too hungry.

Remember if you are hungry then eat. If you're starving you should have eaten half hour ago!

Oh yes - your Sunday lunch with more veggies sound perfect

 

[trophywench]

No - the amount of carbs in breaded or battered cod, comes either from the flour in the batter, or the flour in the bread before they blitz it into fine crumbs!

The fish would be bought 'raw' - our Tesco's and Morrisons, Sainsbury's etc all have a fish counter usually next to the butchery one. They have cod loins normally on ours, which we love fried. Then you cook it however you want to - fry it in a minimum of oil, grill it, bake it. Or if you like fresh salmon, tuna or trout that can be done to a turn in about 13 minutes or something equally quick.

Dunno how big your Yorkshires are - but check out the Aunt Bessie's ones. The ones you cook yourself in individual foil containers are about the same size you get when you cook em from scratch in a 'normal' old fashioned 12-hole bun tin. As long as you cook them crisp so they are all lovely and well risen - they are only about 5.5g of carbs each. So that means basically TWO of them are the same carb value as one spud!

Carb-wise - I've always thought of Yorkshires as an absolute BARGAIN ! - and, importantly you feel as if you've had some 'stodge' - except you haven't! So I wouldn't ditch those two, I really wouldn't. Just have more veg and drop one spud perhaps?

I see you like cauliflower! That's brill, cos when it's cooked - mash it ! You can use it instead of mash in many situations, eg on top of a cottage pie (sprinkly some grated cheese on the top, goes lovely and brown) instead of spud, or with anything you happen to be having for your dinner. If you use very fresh cauli - or frozen - it doesn't actually taste that much OF cauli. Also again with fresh or frozen, grate it, then dry-ish fry it in a squirt of oil just until it's hot, voila - cauli rice! Serve with your fave curry or whatever you might think would be nice. You do the same with 'Courgetti' actually but I haven't bothered buying one of these fancy spiraliser things, just use an ordinary potato peeler to pare off strips down the length (just the outside 'firm' part throw the seedy bit in the middle away. Once again dry-ish fry and there you have tagliatelle instead of spag. Just buy one smallish courgette and try it - you might surprise yourself and like it - cos it doesn't taste anywhere near the same as done in other ways I assure you. I don't like 'soggy' courgette at all really - but this isn't.

There are loads of recipes for things including cake - and savoury things - but made with ground almonds instead of flour (not if you have a nut allergy obviously) kicking round the internet - you can find some on here and also on -

http://diabetes-support.org.uk/diabetes_forum/index.php - just scroll down until you come to the Recipe section.

Enjoy !