World 6-1
Knowing by Heart
Being The Go-To Person for Carb Content
I used to love ice-cream – it’s partly genetic.
But I never, ever, ever stopped to read a nutritional label for ice-cream (or anything) before I got t1d.
I’m surprised anyone would willingly read nutritional labels who doesn’t have a condition of some kind. I’d rather not know (or don’t care).
Perhaps some people like to be told there are 17 teaspoons of sugar in the thing they’re eating by an unsmiling celery + low-fat cheese eater. Not me…
Ignorance can be bliss sometimes, but when my task is to keep BGL in a ‘normal’ range, I’ll try and memorise a few handy numbers.
Different Cokes for Different Folks
Different sizes make a difference. Bananas don’t come perfectly shaped and sized from the banana factory.
I used to weigh bananas, until I figured out how much sugar was roughly in (what I called) a small, medium, and large banana.
A glass of soft drink? Same idea. Small, medium and large serving.
Most soft drinks are similar, although normal Fanta is about 50% higher in sugar than most soft drinks (ignoring diet soft drinks of course).
Mamma Mia That’s a Lotta Info
Actually, I’ve found there really aren’t that many numbers to learn off by heart. I just slowly memorised.
I’ve used books with tables of info about the nutritional content of foods. There are some really handy pocket-sized ones like this. I can just look up the things I eat when I eat them.
I’ve also learned to make rough approximations as much as possible. For example, most fruits tend to have around 10% carbs. I don’t really need to know all the 8%s, 11%s etc. Bananas and mangos have more. Berries and melons have less.
Same idea for cakes, muffins, etc. Most I just guess to have about 50% carbs.
