Carbohydrate Factor

[solox316]

Does anyone use a gram scale along with carbohydrate factor percentages as part of your daily carb counting? Does it work pretty accurately?

I have been thinking about purchasing a gram scale, any suggestions?

[mommaterra]

I don't. I just use Corinne Netzer's _Complete Book of Food Counts_ and info on labels for prepared stuff, like peanut butter, cocoa powder, and vinegar, etc. Some people use sites like FitDay (I think). I can see where a gram scale would be useful at times, but it's just one more thing to clean .... OTOH, if you get one and love it, I'll be listening. --diana

[someone]

I have a scale that measures in grams and ounces if that is what you mean. It is extremely useful if you want to count carbs accurately.

[wiseguy]

I have a small digital gram and ounce scale that I find indispensable.

[HelenM]

I use digital scales all the time. Like the others they can be switched from grams to ounces (I used to use mine for baking cakes so I didn't have to buy them)
I actually don't see how you can work out accurately (even if you estimate later on ) how many carbs there are in your bowl of cereal or slice of bread so big etc without weighing. Even if you use preportioned products they often weigh more than the stated amount.
Just a point if you're going to buy some. Make sure that you can easily reset them as you add things.So for example you put your cereal bowl on the scales, press the reset(tare) button and then put in the cereal. Bowl of cereal weighed and no extra washing up! (I think they all do this easily nowdays but it might be worth checking)

[confuzed]

Does anyone use a gram scale along with carbohydrate factor percentages as part of your daily carb counting? Does it work pretty accurately?

I have been thinking about purchasing a gram scale, any suggestions?

I purchased Chef-Mate which comes with codes that you punch in and it does the nutritional fact calculations for you. I bought it because although most of the nutritional facts can be found online at Calorie Counter Database - Free Online Diet Program (http://www.calorie-count.com/) there are some things that are just not on there. And since I cook a lot, it just makes sense to have one because some recipes call for grams and ounces. Then I'm able to calculate the carb intakes. It's the only way you can be accurate with your intakes.

Hope this helps! :o

[owlyn]

You don't need a gram scale. 1 ounce = roughly 30 grams. I get my carb info from the packages. For large recipes, I add up all the carbs and then divide by the number of "real" servings I intend to get from the finished dish. I then mark this info down on the recipe for future reference. For example, We have one recipe (12 oz. gemelli, 16 oz. garbanzo beans, and broccoli rabe sauteed in garlic, onion, and olive oil) that totals out to 360g Carbs. I know that we get 4 servings out of it, so 360/4 = 90 grams per serving. Tasty, too. For me, this works out to either 6 units humalog, or 3 units humalog and 1 hour walk.

Anyway, when I don't have the carb content on a package, I just use Google and type in something like, "Dunkin Dounuts carbohydrate content", which puts this at the top of the list: https://www.dunkindonuts.com/aboutus/nutrition/Product.aspx?Category=Donuts&id=DD-697
where you can then find that a regular chocolate covered donut contains a mere 29g of CHO (which isn't bad considering), 200 calories (could be worse), but 9 g of fat- and here's the bad part- 2g is saturated and 5g is trans fat. I use restaurant web sites all the time.

BTW, for those of you who go to Chili's: That molten chocolate whatever-it's-called cake has 1270 calories!!!!! And, are you sitting down? 172 grams of carbohydrate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And the rest of the menu is just as spectacular. And we wonder why America is overweight. Someone would eat that desert AFTER eating a meal with appetizer and chips. Close to 3000 calories. Maybe more.

Sometimes I think chain restaurants are owned by cardiologists.

[HeatherP]

I got a good price on an Escale from Amazon.

I find my gram scale indispensable when it comes to fruit!

[solox316]

Thanks to everyone who has responded. It is good to hear all the different things people do!

[soso]

I have the Salter 1450 nutritional scale and it is totally great..it has a lot of features that I find very useful and works in grams and ounces also has the USDA and UK databases in and you can add your own foods and recipes. I paid $109 C for mine...
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