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Working out carb values

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Tom1982

Tom1982

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Parent of person with diabetes
Why are packaged foods so slapdash with this!? If I look at a soup value it’ll be for 400g, if I weigh it, it’ll be 330g? No wonder we end up fighting hypos.
 
If it's that far below, I would complain to the manufacturer. I believe the e symbol used on a lot of weighted foods means that the average must be the listed weight, but individual tins/jars/pots may be up to 10% off either way - so for your example 360-440g.
 
It’s so annoying though. It’s always miles out. Are they weighing the packaging?
 
I don't think they're supposed to.
 
I have seen that things that are in a liquid like chickpeas or kidney beans they will give a drained weight on the can which is obviously less that the 400g can.
But SOUP ??
 
Yeah. It’s literally everything. It appears we can’t just look at a prepackaged meal or can and use the carb value. In 50 attempts every single one has been well out. Someone should be accountable for this!
 
Tom1982 said:
Why are packaged foods so slapdash with this!? If I look at a soup value it’ll be for 400g, if I weigh it, it’ll be 330g? No wonder we end up fighting hypos.
Click to expand...
Was this a tin or a carton? Perhaps you didn't get all the soup out, particularly with a thick soup in a carton where you can't scrape it out. I usually swill it out with a little water to ensure I get it all and then just roughly half the contents.... or perhaps quarter in the case of a small child.
The carb content of soups isn't usually high so a bit of extra water or not quite getting all the soup out shouldn't make enough difference to cause a hypo. It is only going to be the difference between rounding up or rounding down to the nearest half unit.... assuming you have a half unit pen and the carb content isn't an exact analysis anyway. It is just an approximation of the ingredients listed.
 
rebrascora said:
Was this a tin or a carton? Perhaps you didn't get all the soup out, particularly with a thick soup in a carton where you can't scrape it out. I usually swill it out with a little water to ensure I get it all and then just roughly half the contents.... or perhaps quarter in the case of a small child.
The carb content of soups isn't usually high so a bit of extra water or not quite getting all the soup out shouldn't make enough difference to cause a hypo. It is only going to be the difference between rounding up or rounding down to the nearest half unit.... assuming you have a half unit pen and the carb content isn't an exact analysis anyway. It is just an approximation of the ingredients listed.
Click to expand...
Tried all that. I suppose it’s not a massive deal, it’s just the case that they are so far out and you can’t just read the carb value and work with it. I think it’s a bit slapdash on the suppliers part. It’s everything we buy.
 
You have to remember that diabetes is not precise either. Too many other factors put spanners in the works that even if every food product was absolutely perfectly carb counted in every tin or packet .... which would be nigh on impossible... we might be more sensitive or resistant to insulin that day which will mean we don't respond as we might hope.

I think I have read that you are an engineer or something similar which may make it more difficult for you to accept that diabetes doesn't follow rules strictly. Biological systems are messy.... You don't get nice x+y=z results like maths or physics. Children probably add to that messiness because their bodies are changing so rapidly and they are prone to infections and viruses as their body learns to deal with things.
@Inka came up with a very good analogy of diabetes being like a shopping trolly with the wonky wheel. It doesn't go in straight lines or where you want it to go and you have to keep stopping and correcting, but gradually with experience you learn how to manage it better to get it to roughly where you want to be. It is really frustrating sometimes especially when other people have trolleys which work perfectly. 🙄 Accepting that the trolly is wonky and learning how to manage it without crashing is the key and it takes practice and I am sure it is 10 times more difficult with a child as it is doing it for yourself.
 
I used to work for Allied Lyons and the packaging was supposed to be accurate - we had a whole department just for tracking the ingredients.
There is a lot of leeway in how they are presented though - as servings rather than the whole packet is one such - that might possibly introduce yet more problems.
 
rebrascora said:
You have to remember that diabetes is not precise either. Too many other factors put spanners in the works that even if every food product was absolutely perfectly carb counted in every tin or packet .... which would be nigh on impossible... we might be more sensitive or resistant to insulin that day which will mean we don't respond as we might hope.

I think I have read that you are an engineer or something similar which may make it more difficult for you to accept that diabetes doesn't follow rules strictly. Biological systems are messy.... You don't get nice x+y=z results like maths or physics. Children probably add to that messiness because their bodies are changing so rapidly and they are prone to infections and viruses as their body learns to deal with things.
@Inka came up with a very good analogy of diabetes being like a shopping trolly with the wonky wheel. It doesn't go in straight lines or where you want it to go and you have to keep stopping and correcting, but gradually with experience you learn how to manage it better to get it to roughly where you want to be. It is really frustrating sometimes especially when other people have trolleys which work perfectly. 🙄 Accepting that the trolly is wonky and learning how to manage it without crashing is the key and it takes practice and I am sure it is 10 times more difficult with a child as it is doing it for yourself.
Click to expand...
Hahaha that’s right, I am an engineer and a problem solver. I will keep going over something until I find a black and white solution. Will have to stop that.
 
Dealing with kids and carbs is tricky. My 12 year old is much less sensitive to carbs than he was when he was 9 so we can be much more slapdash in our carb estimates. Previously we’ve taken the info off packets and then made our own downward adjustments that worked - so for example a bagel is 45g carbs on the packet but we would do 35g for our purposes. We’re now back to using the packet info as he’s less sensitive.
 
@Tom1982 - When my T2 became serious and I started down the reduced carb route I looked into carb values on packets and how they were derived. The first thing I found out was that it is very difficult to measure the carb content of anything and so most carb values were worked out on the basis that when all else had been accounted for, what was left must be carbohydrate. The second thing I realised was that the food packaging regulations allow estimates of carbohydrate to go on the packet. Put those things together and you come to the conclusion that the carbohydrate level on a package is essentially guess work and its validity is a function of the quality of whoever did the guessing. I could not even get an estimate of the error in the numbers quoted - I'm guessing 20-25% would not be unreasonable.

My conclusion was that packaging nutrition values are best treated as guidance and only experience will tell you how much faith you can put into the numbers from any particular food producer. Trust your judgement based on your experience I say and don't try and be too analytical. You will just get brain hurt.
 
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