Carb Calculations on Recipes
Hi Everyone,
Just wondering if anyone knows how to properly calculate the carbohydrates in a recipe, or if there is a website that gives you the conversions? I made a batch of delicious banana muffins this weekend, but am lost as to how to estimate the carbs. How much does the 1.5 cups flour, 3 large bananas, 3/4 cup of sugar, etc. come out to?
Thanks in advance!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Trudy on -
Hi Nicole. This is a rather round-about way to answer your question, but I do it once in a while: First test your blood sugar. If it's in range, eat a muffin and bolus for some guessed amount, say 30 carbs. Two hours later test again, making any corrections necessary, but first figuring out the approx. carbs from the muffin.
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Permalink Reply by still_young_at_heart on -
You can always use the USDA site
http://fnic.nal.usda.gov/food-composition
It's easier to calculate carbs before hand using an electronic scale with a built in database. How large were those bananas? How packed was the flour? etc.
Maurie
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Permalink Reply by Zoe on -
I use calorieking.com or else a printed list of carbs I have at home. I don't weigh things, but do pay attention to "one small banana" etc and adjust accordingly. All my cookbooks are marked up with carb counts.
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Permalink Reply by Shawnmarie on -
When I bake or make something with multiple ingredients, I use a resource like www.calorieking.com to determine the calories and carbs for each ingredient and then add them all up so I have the total calories and carbs in the entire batch. Then, if it's something like muffins, I take the total calories and carbs and divide by the number of muffins so I know calories and carbs per muffin. If it's not something easily divisible like that, I weigh the entire batch of food when it's done and determine the number of calories or carbs per ounce or gram or whatever weight works best. I then weigh my portion when I eat and it's easy to determine the number of calories and carbs.
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Permalink Reply by Zoe on
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Oh, good point, Shawnmarie, I didn't mention dividing. I do the same with adding up all the ingredients, then I determine how many servings there are and just divide by that number. It seems to work out pretty well. I often eat things I know the carbs for or have them written in the recipes now which makes it easier to just measure the ingredients or even just go with "one small eggplant" (or whatever) as I measured it before.
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Permalink Reply by roodgirl on -
I like the website nutitiondata.self.com Once you have an account (free), you can click "create recipe" and put in all your ingredients and the number of servings, and it will analyze the recipe and give you all the nutritional info. It then saves the info in my account so I can find it again later. The input takes a bit of time but it's been so helpful when making a recipe without the nutritional info.
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Permalink Reply by DianaS on -
I usually check http://www.food.com/ for a similar recipe and use that for the carb counts. They include nutrition data for all of their recipes. I like Calorie King too but a lot of times I don't have time to look up individual ingredients in Calorie King. Or at pot lucks.
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Permalink Reply by Spock on -
I do it the old fashion way, as an arithmetic problem. I use the packaging and Calorie King. A cup of all purpose flour is 88 carbs, a banana is 39 carbs (3= 117) and 3/4 cup of sugar is 150. Did you add milk or other things? If not, the total amount of carbs in the proportions you gave is 399. If you made 12 muffins, each would be around 34 carbs.
I do this a lot, as I often make bread. I can calculate the total carbs and divide by servings and get pretty accurate numbers. Just watch out for the fat. It won't add carbs, but can affect your absorption rates.
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Permalink Reply by Zoe on
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Wow, according to my list I use, a small banana is only 15 carbs!! I usually count it as 20 for a medium sized one. It works for my BG. 39 sounds very high!
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Permalink Reply by Shawnmarie on
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That's why I weigh things. It's surprising how the weight of something can differ from other measurements. For example, I started weighing peanut butter and learned that a 33g serving (in weight, not carbs) is much closer to one tablespooon rather than the two tablespoons listed on the label.
I just looked on calorieking.com for bananas and to get 20g of carbs it only takes 3.5 ounces of banana, which doesn't seem like very much.
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Permalink Reply by Spock on
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You said they were large bananas, so I went with the program. You are correct--weighing is a lot more accurate.
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