carbohydrate counting Archives - Diabetes Counselling Online

Back to basics on carbohydrate foods

August 25, 2014 by Sally Leave a Comment

So many people I see in my practice who’ve had diabetes for a while, when I ask them which foods contain carbohydrates they struggle to answer. So this is really a back to basics blog to remind us about which foods contain carbohydrate, why it’s important to recognise them, which foods don’t contain carbohydrate (or enough to worry about from a diabetes point of view) and a quick summary on quality and quantity issues. I hope it will also be helpful for those of you newly diagnosed with D.

Why is it important for people with diabetes to understand about carbohydrates?

The billions of cells in our body choose glucose as their fuel to help them keep us functioning properly. The food that we eat contains energy from carbohydrates, proteins and fats and it’s the carbohydrates that are broken down by our digestive system and becomes glucose in our bloodstream to fuel those busy cells. The proteins and fats play other key roles including repair, protection and communication and we need a quality balance of all three for wellbeing. The words I’ve highlighted here will take you other blogs on those topics if you feel like you need further information about them.

Of course with diabetes we need to manage how much glucose is in our bloodstream, which is why it’s important to understand how much carbohydrate is in different foods, and how both quality and quantity of the carbs we eat makes an impact. The glycemic index of the carbs we choose also makes a big impact, so I encourage you to read this blog to learn more about this important aspect of carbohydrates. The only time we need high-GI carbs is for hypo treatments, and this should be discussed with your D-team.

We can’t just cut carbohydrates out of our diet as our bodies need them for basic energy requirements, and many of the foods that contain carbohydrates also contain essential nutrients for our wellbeing. It’s also not sustainable to just eat protein, fat and non-starchy vegetables. So if we can learn how to choose quality carbohydrates in reasonable amounts it can make an enormous difference to both our diabetes management and our overall wellbeing.

Which foods contain carbohydrates?

A good place to start is the Australian Dietary Guidelines and the five food groups which all contain sources of carbohydrates:

Vegetables – mainly potato, sweet potato, corn and legumes/beans
Fruit
Grains (cereal) foods
Protein foods – really only the legumes/beans and some nuts.
Dairy

Carbohydrates from these five groups are necessary for our overall wellbeing. The idea with diabetes is to take the majority of your carb intake from these groups. Again, click the highlighted words to link to previous blogs written just on those topics.

Discretionary choices or ‘sometimes foods’

Most of these contain carbohydrates, and (sadly for some) they’re not ‘good’ carbs so you need to be aware when you choose foods like these that you’re likely to upset your blood glucose control and disrupt your wellness.

As outlined in the Australian Dietary Guidelines, discretionary choices include these types of foods below which you’ll notice, along with fats, salt and alcohol, also contain carbohydrates that will affect our blood glucose management:

Sweet biscuits, cakes and desserts
Processed meats and sausages
Ice-cream, confectionery and chocolate
Meat pies and other pastries
Commercial burgers, hot chips and fried foods
Crisps and other fatty and/or salty snacks
Cream and butter
Sugar-sweetened cordials, soft drinks, fruit drinks and sports drinks
Alcoholic drinks

Which foods don’t contain carbohydrates?

Most of the protein foods (other than legumes/beans and some nuts) are carbohydrate free, and fats are carbohydrate free.

Non-starchy vegetables are also fairly carbohydrate free, in that we don’t need to worry about ‘counting’ the carbs in them.

In terms of dairy, the one that tricks many is that cheese doesn’t contain (much) carbohydrate – again not enough to worry us for counting it.

It’s important to remember with these ‘carb-free’ foods, that many of them contain calories/kilojoules so will affect our weight which in turn can affect our diabetes, so it’s important to check with your dietitian as to how much of each you should be consuming.

How do I carbohydrate count?

This subject really depends on the type of diabetes you have as to how accurate you need to be with your carb counting.

As a general rule though, here in Australia we count 15g of carbohydrates in a serve of food as one carbohydrate serve. If it’s 3g less, then it’s half a serve, and 3g more than 15g is 1.5 serves.

For people with type 2 diabetes who are not on insulin, we often suggest a small fist size counts as one carb serve – think one piece of bread, one glass of milk, one piece of fruit, etc.

How many serves you have depends on you and your health professional’s personalised advice for you. In terms of a minimum amount of carbohydrate, you might like to read this blog discussing low carb diets.

There are some excellent free resources to find out how much carbohydrate is in different foods. There are lots of these available, but a few good examples include:

In Summary

If you can learn to recognise the carbohydrates in the foods you’re eating then you should also begin to see patterns emerging in your blood glucose control. Choosing nutritious, preferably low GI carbs spread evenly across the meals and snacks in your day should make a great difference in your diabetes management.

If you’d like to talk with others on this and other ‘diabetes and food’ topics, why not join our Diabetes Counselling Online popular Facebook closed group ‘Diabetes and Food – let’s celebrate it!’? We all love our food there, and have lots to celebrate about it.

As usual I recommend that you speak to your own Accredited Practising Dietitian for personalised advice, but hope that you found this blog helpful.

Sally

Sally is the Social Media Dietitian with Diabetes Counselling Online, owner of her private practice (Marchini Nutrition), and has had type 1 diabetes for close to 40 years and coeliac disease for many years too. You can access a list of all Sally’s Diabetes Counselling Online blogs here.

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Eating well without counting calories

August 11, 2014 by Sally 2 Comments

Some of us really dislike counting calories. It’s great for those who do, and many I know use tools/apps such as MyFitnessPal and others with success, but it’s not for everyone. This raises the question, if you’re not counting calories how do you know how much to eat to lose or maintain your weight/wellbeing?

A good place to start is to have an understanding of the energy density in carbohydrates, proteins, fats and alcohols, these being the four ‘macronutrients’ that provide all our calories/energy in the food we eat. May I suggest a quick review of a previous blog called ‘Energy In/Energy Out – understanding how much you need and where you get it’. In a nutshell though, carbohydrates and proteins provide about the same amount of energy, and fats and alcohol are about double the energy density of carbohydrates and protein.

Another excellent thing to keep in mind is the Australian Dietary Guidelines that indicates how many serves of each of the five food groups each of us should be aiming to include in our daily food intake.

The reason for highlighting this suggestion is it is easy to think that because something is healthy that means we can eat as much of it as we like. We know that monounsaturated and omega-3 polyunsaturated oils, including avocados, nuts and seeds, are good choices for heart health (as outlined in the Blog 2 on fats – which are the best types for us to enjoy?). Often if people think they’ll lose weight by cutting out one macronutrient, it just doesn’t work in the long term as they tend to balance out the energy they need by including more of another.

For us with diabetes, often people think they should cut down on their carbs to help with their blood glucose control (which can be helpful – read more in the blog Discussion on low carb diets) but end up eating more fat or protein in their daily routine to make up for the energy they’re missing in the carbs they’ve cut.

So the idea to understand how to make your meal and snack choices contain the correct amounts of the ‘macronutrients’ to keep your energy balance as well as the foods from all 5 food groups to provide you the nutrition you need for wellbeing.

The key, as always with diabetes, is ‘balance’.

There are a number of plate diagrams around. The traditional idea of a medium sized plate divided into quarters, with one quarter being carb foods (preferably nutritious and low-GI), one quarter being lean protein and the other half being non-starchy vegetables, with a small amount of good fats too is an awesome idea to keep in your mind.

The Australian Dietary Guidelines also reminds us that “an allowance for unsaturated spreads and oils for cooking, or nuts and seeds can be included in the following quantities: 28-40g per day for men less than 70 years of age, and 14-20g per day for women and older men.”

Carbohydrate foods

Choices here can come from the vegetables, grains, dairy and fruit (although we tend to save dairy and fruit for snacks). You might choose sweet potato, Carisma potato or sweet corn if you were having a vegetable based meal, and around 2-3 carb serves of these would make up the quarter serve of your plate. If you were having rice, pasta or another grain food, again you’d aim for 2-3 carb serves on your plate.

It’s easy to think about carb serves as roughly a small fist size.

Protein foods

One serve of a protein food as outlined in the Australian Dietary Guidelines is enough to take that quarter allocation on your plate:

65g cooked lean red meats such as beef, lamb, veal, pork, goat or kangaroo (about 90-100g raw)
80g cooked lean poultry such as chicken or turkey (100g raw)
100g cooked fish fillet (about 115g raw) or one small can of fish
2 large (120g) eggs
1 cup (150g) cooked or canned legumes/beans such as lentils, chick peas or split peas (preferably with no added salt)
170g tofu
30g nuts, seeds, peanut or almond butter or tahini or other nut or seed paste (no added salt)

You can read more about protein in the blog Protein and diabetes – do you get the balance right?. And it can be easy to think about protein serves by aiming for a serve the size of the palm of your hand (no fingers or thumbs).

Non-starchy Vegetables

This section is half the plate, and is where many people struggle to eat enough. It should be made up of about 3 serves based on the Australian Dietary Guidelines, and doesn’t include the starchy veggies that sit in the carbohydrate quarter.

A standard serve of vegetables is about 75g or:

½ cup cooked green or orange vegetables (for example, broccoli, spinach, carrots or pumpkin)
½ cup cooked, dried or canned beans, peas or lentils
1 cup green leafy or raw salad vegetables
1 medium tomato

Some great ideas to make the non-starchy vegetables work for you might include roasting them or a vegetable stew or curry with a tomato base. And there’s always a hearty salad with perhaps some cheese from your daily dairy serves, or good old lightly steamed vegetables. You can also skewer them to be barbequed, and stir fry them – the options are almost never ending.

So don’t be held back by some maybe old-fashioned ideas about vegetables not being exciting. Give some new ideas a try and learn to embrace their wonderful nutritious and delicious qualities. And if at the end of a meal, or even in between meals, if you can discover some ideas for these non-starchy vegetables you’ll be happy to learn that they’re low in all the energy containing macronutrients so eat more of these to keep you satisfied.

How much weight is a good amount to lose?

This is really a topic for another whole blog, but just briefly I’ll take the opportunity to remind you that ‘going on a diet’ doesn’t work in the long term. Even if you lose weight in the short term, it will come back plus some – the evidence here is overwhelming. By following the Australian Dietary Guidelines suggested daily serves for your gender/age and participating in regular physical activity you are likely to lose about a kilo a month and it should be sustainable. There is certainly a lot to eat in there and I challenge anyone to still be hungry when consuming all that food! To maintain a healthy weight it’s recommended that you add in 2.5 serves from the food groups that you enjoy the most.

The main point is to avoid processed and take away foods as often as possible. Try to be organised and take your own meals and snacks with you to help avoid temptation.

My last key point is to remind you about the importance of seeing an Accredited Practising Dietitian to help you with a personalised consultation so you know you’re getting everything you need to be your best.

I hope you’ve found this useful in helping you to understand how much of the different foods you need to include in each of your meals, as well as the extras you have such as dairy, fruit and nut serves for your snacks if you need/want them.

Please let me know if you any questions. Wishing you all an awesome week. Sally

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Discussion on low carb diets

July 28, 2014 by Sally 8 Comments

Australian Guide to healthy eating poster

By popular demand through a thread in our Facebook group Diabetes and Food – let’s celebrate it!, this topic deserves a blog to help explain some of the ‘stuff we hear’ around carbohydrates and type 2 diabetes. I’d also encourage people with type 1 diabetes to read this though, because some of the points made are also relevant for us! Up front I will remind you that everyone has individual requirements and should see an Accredited Practising Dietitian for a personalised consultation, so this is a ‘general guide’ only.

Firstly we need to understand what ‘low’ means in such a context as in my experience as an Accredited Practising Dietitian, people tend to associate ‘low’ with ‘virtually no’ carbohydrate. We’ll also look at some of the evidence that shows that ‘low’ carb diets can help with glucose control in type 2s, and why when drugs (other than metformin or SGLT2-inhibitors) are introduced it’s important to ensure more (quality) carb intakes as advised by your health professionals. And lastly (but certainly not leastly) we’ll review how, based on the Australian Dietary Guidelines, it’s possible to have a nutritionally balanced diet while watching your carb intake.

What does ‘low’ carbohydrate mean?

If you ask some people what they think ‘low carb’ means, you may hear that it’s about cutting carbohydrates out as much as possible. Straight up as a dietitian my alarm bells ring as carbs feature in all five of the food groups that we need for nutrients to ensure our wellbeing: vegetables (starchy vegetables like potato, sweet potato and corn), fruit, dairy, protein (when the likes of legumes are included, and especially in vegetarian diets) and of course, the important grain/cereal foods.

The American Diabetes Association defines a low-carb diet as 130g of carb per day. Does that surprise you?? The ‘trick’ with low carb diets is therefore to know how to choose your carbs wisely so that you’re still meeting your nutrient requirements, and also to know what to replace that carb energy with (remembering that carbs, proteins and fats make up our daily energy intake) so you don’t get too hungry and be encouraged to ‘cheat’.

Remembering that there’s 15g of carbohydrate in an ‘exchange’ or ‘serve’ that gives us close to 9 carb serves across the day.

If you’re on medication that helps your body to produce more insulin, or you’re providing insulin yourself on a fixed dose then this idea is dangerous to your health so please speak to your health professionals before making any changes to your diet.

Some benefits of lower carbohydrate diets

Of course we know that all carbohydrates break down to glucose which is the fuel needed by our bodies, but in modern diets often too much (and poor quality) of this ‘fuel’ is provided which can cause stress to our organs and worsen our diabetes control. So understanding the benefits of a lower carbohydrate diet can help us to stick with it for longer and balance the rest of our diets more easily.

Some of those benefits may include:

Lower incidence of high blood glucose levels (hyperglycemia)
Lower amounts of medications need to control hyperglycemia
130g/day is a sustainable amount, meaning it’s easier to stick to in the longer term
Putting your pancreas under less stress to produce insulin, thereby helping it to keep working for longer
By ensuring your 130g/day is nutritious and low-GI carb you may also improve your blood fat levels (cholesterol/triglycerides) which will lower your risk of cardiovascular disease
It doesn’t necessarily lead to weight loss – that depends on your total energy intake.

How do you manage it best?

Again I will mention how important having a personalised consultation with your Accredited Practising Dietitian is because everyone is different in many ways. Here I will make suggestions that I hope will help to get your head around combining the idea of low carb into your daily routine while still meeting the nutritional requirements as outlined in the Australian Dietary Guidelines foundation diet (see page 2).

In a nutshell, it’s about only choosing your carb sources from the 5 food groups and balancing that out with quality proteins and healthy fats. I encourage you to re-read the previous blogs I’ve written on those topics as highlighted.

Remembering that 130g/day equates to close to 9 carb exchanges/serves, your day might start to look a bit like this:

Breakfast: ¼ cup of raw rolled oats (1 serve carb) served with 125ml light milk (half a serve), a small banana (85g – 1 carb serve) and a tablespoon of LSA mix (for extra fibre/protein) = 2.5 serves total

Morning Tea: A 100g tub of low-fat yogurt = 1 serve total

Lunch: A sandwich made on wholegrain bread (the grainer the better – 2 serves) made with a protein serve and as much non-starchy veg as you can handle, either on the sandwich or as a side, using half an avocado as the spread (for your good fats), and a piece of fruit such as an apple or pear (both good low-GI fruits – 1 serve) = 3 serves total

Afternoon Tea: A 30g handful of mixed unsalted nuts = not worth counting carb-wise

Dinner: Remembering the balanced plate being one quarter carb, one quarter protein and half non-starchy vegetables, this works with so many meals. Aim for your carb serve to = 2 serves total

Supper: You’ve still got half a carb serve up your sleeve. I would encourage something like half a slice of grainy toast with peanut butter on it to give you the energy to get you through the night, but half a serve of low-fat dairy would also work well, or even a couple of squares of dark chocolate if you fancied it = 0.5 serves total

In this example you can see that we’ve incorporated 9 carb serves/exchanges and yet have included quality carbs at every meal.

Some final tips

Remember to include protein and some non-starchy veg with every meal.
Rice and pasta can be problematic a serve size is so small. Something I recommend that works for many people is to include the carb serves in the form of legumes (lentils, chickpeas, kidney beans, etc) in the pasta sauce and use low-carb alternatives such as those made from konjac root, or make pasta/rice out of vegetables such as grated zucchini or carrot or cauliflower. I sometimes serve my pasta sauces on mashed cannellini beans and frozen spinach (warmed of course!) and find it’s very satisfying.
Don’t forget to exercise! If the point of minimising your carbs is to control your BGLs, then even as little as ten minutes exercise after meals can make a fantastic difference to your readings. Do some self-experimenting about how much your BGLs drop after say 10, 20 or 30 minutes walking after meals, and then if you want to include more quality carbohydrates in some meals, you’ll know how to manage better.

I hope this has proved useful for you, and that you have a better understanding of how a low-carb (130g/day) might help with your diabetes control. Of course please ask any questions below and I’ll be happy to address them for you.

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Wonderful wholegrains help with d-management and much more

March 17, 2014 by Sally 1 Comment

So often I refer to the Australian Dietary Guidelines, and today’s blog is no exception as I thought that Grains would be a great topic to explore as they’re so helpful for our diabetes management, weight management, avoidance of cardiovascular disease and to help us maximise nutritional requirements!

I’ll first look at why grains are important and what nutrients they include, then look at some of the variety of grains that are available to us, how many we need in our daily food intake and some new ways and recipes to include them. I think it’s interesting to know that this group is one that the guidelines are often not met, so hopefully this blog will make a difference for you.

As I hope you know by now, there are 5 different food groups listed in the Australian Dietary Guidelines (I’ll call them ‘the guidelines’ from now on). One of the key points under Guideline 2 (Enjoy a wide variety of nutritious foods every day) is to “enjoy grain (cereal) foods, mostly wholegrain and/or high cereal fibre varieties”, and for good reasons too!

The evidence for their inclusion in the guidelines gets a ‘Wow!’ from me with the guidelines telling us that:

• Cardiovascular disease: There is evidence of a probable association between the consumption of grain (cereal) foods (especially wholegrains and those with fibre from oats or barley) and a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease in adults (Grade B; Evidence Report, Section 6.3). Almost all the high level trials were conducted with oats, with the evidence of beneficial lowering of levels of LDL and total cholesterol levels. The protective effect was noted with between one to three serves per day of wholegrain foods (predominantly oats).

• Type 2 diabetes: There is evidence of a probable association between the consumption of grain (cereal) foods (especially wholegrains) and reduced risk of type 2 diabetes (Grade B; Evidence Report, Section 6.7). The evidence supports three serves per day of wholegrain foods conferring between 21% and 42% reduction in risk of type 2 diabetes.

• Excess weight: There is evidence of a probable association between consumption of three to five serves per day of grain (cereal) foods (mainly wholegrain) and reduced risk of weight gain (Grade B; Evidence Report, Section 6.6).

• Colorectal cancer: There is recent evidence suggesting that consumption of one to three serves of cereals high in dietary fibre per day is associated with reduced risk of colorectal cancer in adults (Grade C; Evidence Report, Section 6.2). Although previously the WCRF report noted a probable relationship, it recently reviewed the evidence and found it convincing that fibre-rich foods offer protection against colorectal cancer (see Appendix F). This is also supported by a recent systematic review and dose response meta-analysis of prospective studies showing that three serves of wholegrain and high fibre cereals per day reduced the risk of colorectal cancer.

• Other cancers: Recent evidence is inconclusive for an association regarding the consumption of grain (cereal) foods and risk of other cancers in adults (Evidence Report, Section 6.1).”

This section of the guidelines finishes up by reminding us of a very important reason for us to focus on whole grains rather than processed grains: “Because wholegrains contain more nutrients and phytochemicals, concentrated in the bran and germ, they are likely to have greater effects than refined grains (cereals). Wholegrains contain phenolic compounds with strong anti-oxidant capacity that may be protective against processes involved in the pathology of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer. Choosing wholegrain options may also assist with satiety and help in not over consuming food beyond energy (kilojoule) requirements.”

What’s in grains?

When you think grains, you might think ‘carb source’ or ‘low GI’ or ‘high fibre’ and you’d be right on all counts! The guidelines advise us that they also contain “protein, B group vitamins, vitamin E, iron, zinc, magnesium and phosphorus. Other protective components are fermentable carbohydrates, oligosaccharides, flavonoids, phenolics, phytoestrogens, lignans, protease inhibitors, saponins and selenium.” Another “Wow!” from me

Types of grains

The National Grains & Legumes Council has a very helpful website which goes into all kinds of detail on the topic of grains (and legumes too).

I like this listing of the types of grains that The National Grains & Legumes Council website provides:

“There are a number of different types of grains found within the Poaceae family from ‘true’ cereal grains e.g wheat, oats, rice, corn (maize), barley, sorghum, rye, millet, to the ‘pseudo-cereal’ group e.g. amaranth, buckwheat and quinoa (pronounced ‘keen-wah’). The ‘pseudo-cereal’ group are not part of the Poaceae botanical family, in which ‘true’ grains belong, however they are nutritionally similar and used in similar ways to ‘true’ grains.” The links will take you to further nutrient and historical information about the grains as listed.

For those of us with coeliac disease (unable to eat grains containing the protein gluten), as well as it still being Coeliac Awareness Week (13-20 March), you’ll notice that many grains are gluten-free – corn, rice, sorghum, millet, amaranth, buckwheat and quinoa. Remember to NOT start a gluten free diet unless you’re tested first for coeliac disease, but there’s no reason not to include these gluten free grains in a healthy balanced diet as they’re full of great health benefits (as all wholegrains are).

How much should we have?

If this is too small to read, click on it and it will enlarge

How do we include them?

The National Grains & Legumes Council website offers recipes for both savoury and sweet ways to include more grains in our diets.

My other favourite ‘go to’ recipe websites include the Australian Healthy Food Guide (which also offers more great tips and advice on grains) and Taste.com.au that has a great selection of whole grain recipes.

So the main points to remember for us with diabetes is that we should aim for Whole Grains, rather than processed grains, and remember to ‘count the carbohydrates’ in the grains that we consume while aiming for the recommended number of serves each day. If you’re not sure what carbs are in the different types, use Calorie King to find out.

Click on the image if you need it to be larger

How do you ensure your intake of whole grains across your day?? If you’re not sure and would like to arrange a one-on-one e-consult with our e-dietitian (a free service for all Australians), just pop over and register here, or you can ask your questions and share your ideas below

Sally Marchini is the Social Media Dietitian with Diabetes Counselling Online, owner of her private practice (Marchini Nutrition), has had type 1 diabetes for close to 40 years and coeliac disease for many years too.

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NIP your own recipes for better glycemic control

October 21, 2013 by Sally 2 Comments

As a person with type 1 diabetes there are three tools that I use on a regular basis to assist me with more accurate carb counting (which in turn, of course, helps to keep my blood glucose readings more stable).

The first on my list is Australia’s version of Calorie King that is free and includes most of our Aussie brands/foods (I’ll be very happy when they finally launch an Android version of their app).

My second favourite tool is The Glycemic Index website that I use to understand the glycemic indices of various carbohydrate foods with a view to including at least one low-GI carb with each meal, and to avoiding high-GI carbs wherever possible (for many reasons).

The third tool that I’ve found really helpful for improving my carb counting in home-cooked meals is the Food Standards of Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) Nutrition Panel Calculator and yet I don’t really know of many others who use it.

If you’re feeding a family and you have basic recipes that you follow that might involve meals such as a pasta bake, or a lasagne or a casserole or a soup or whatever, where you know approximately the serve size that you’ll be having then it’s really simple to do. If it is a standard recipe, you can then print out the Nutrition Information Panel that you’ve created and save the recipe on the site and it’s always there for future reference.

I’ll take you through how to enter one and then hopefully you’ll be able to add some of your favourite recipes and even share them, with their Nutrition Information Panels, with us at Diabetes Counselling Online in the forums.

The recipe I’ll use is one of my favourite vegetable stews, Ratatouille, that is very versatile and can help you to reach your 5-6 serves of vegetables each day. It can also be frozen and reheated if you make too much and is delicious cold as a leftover.

When you arrive at the opening page you can either read through their Quick Start Guide or just scroll down to the bottom of the page and type the name of your recipe into the box and hit ‘Continue’.

This will take you to where you’ll start entering your ingredients.

Now you need to enter your recipe. The first button to press is ‘Add Ingredient’ and you’ll see a new box pop up. I’ve added ‘Eggplant’ in this example, and you can see you’re offered some choices. Just click on the one that is closest to your recipe ingredient.

As in this case we won’t be baking, boiling, grilling, pickling or using it raw, I’ll choose stir-fried as our method of cooking. When you click on that one, you’ll see it turns to yellow, and you can change your mind if you make a mistake.

If you’re happy with your choice you just scroll down and press ‘Select>’.

Here is where you need to enter the amount. This is the only slightly ‘painful’ part of the recipe as the ingredients you’re entering will all need to be weighed as you build the recipe – but it is only a one off and then you’ll know the carb amounts for your serve sizes (definitely worth it). You can only enter in grams or kilograms.

Again you’ll be offered the opportunity to ‘go back’ and change your selection, but if you’re happy then continue on by pressing ‘Add>’ on that screen.

From there, just keep entering all your ingredients one by one until they’re all in.

It’s at that point that I recommend pressing the ‘<Save & Close’ button before you create the NIP, so you can have access later.

That way, when you go back to the opening screen you can see the recipes you’ve entered (here are some I’ve prepared earlier for our Facebook group Diabetes and Food – let’s celebrate it).

Just click on the recipe you want to know more about, and this is a version of what you’ll see:

From here you just click on ‘Create NIP>’.

And you’ll need to enter any weight changes during cooking (not necessary for this recipe as it’s all cooked in the one pot with the lid on), and to tell it the serve size you expect to use and how many serves from the amount. In this example I’ve chosen ten serves of 250g, but you can change it as often as you want to as the main recipe is now saved on your computer. You can even do this last bit at the point where you are serving the meal, so you can know what amounts you’re having on that occasion (perhaps depending on your hunger level – adding diabetes flexibility).

And there you have it! So now we know that one 250g serve of my ratatouille contains 11.5g of carbohydrate, allowing me to eat it and know what will happen to my BGL control. You can also see by using our label reading skills that the recipe does meet all our healthy eating guidelines in the per 100g column for fats (<10g total and <2g saturated) and sodium (<120mg).

I hope you enjoy the benefits this site can bring to helping you improve your glycemic control.

Happy Eating!

Sally is the Social Media Dietitian with Diabetes Counselling Online, owner of her private practice (Marchini Nutrition), and has had type 1 diabetes for close to 40 years and coeliac disease for many years too.

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