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carbohydrates

What Do Total Carbohydrate And Added Sugar On The Nutrition Label Mean?

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Trying to figure out the carbohydrates on nutrition facts labels can be downright confusing.  There’s a number for total carbohydrates but then there are subheadings for dietary fiber, sugars, and sometimes insoluble fiber, sugar alcohols, and other carbohydrates.

What Does Everything Mean?

  • Total Carbohydrate, shown in grams, is first. It gives you the total number of usable carbs per serving. This number includes starches, complex carbohydrates, dietary fiber, added sugars, and non-digestible additives.
  • The subheadings under Total Carbohydrate are Dietary Fiber, sometimes broken down into Soluble and Insoluble Fiber; Sugars; and sometimes categories for Sugar Alcohols and/or Other Sugars. The sum of these numbers will not always equal the total carbs because some starches — types of carbs often used as binders or thickeners — aren’t required to be listed on food labels.
  • Dietary Fiber, shown in grams, gives you the amount of fiber per serving. Dietary fiber is indigestible, usually passes through your intestinal tract without being absorbed, doesn’t raise your blood sugar levels, and slows down the impact of the other carbs in a meal. Subtracting the non-impact carbs – the ones that don’t affect blood sugar (fiber and sugar alcohols) from the total carbs gives you the number of net (also called usable or impact) carbs – the ones that do affect your blood sugar.
  • Sugars gives you the total amount of carbohydrate, in grams, from naturally occurring sugars like lactose (milk sugar) and fructose (fruit sugar) PLUS any added sugars like high fructose corn syrup, brown and white sugar, cane juice, etc. Added sugars are the sugars and syrups added to foods during processing or preparation.  They add calories but little or no nutrients.
  • You can determine if there are a lot of added sugars by checking the product’s ingredients label. Ingredients are listed in order of quantity so if added sugars (white/brown sugar, corn syrup, etc.) are listed in the top three or four ingredients you can guess that the bulk of the sugars are added, not naturally occurring.
  • Some products, although not all, separately list Sugar Alcohols. You might see mannitol, sorbitol, xylitol, erythritol, and others on the ingredients label. If the package says the product is “sugar-free” or has “no sugar added” it must list the sugar alcohols in the ingredients. If more than one type of sugar alcohol is listed, there must be a line for sugar alcohol grams on the nutrition label.
  • Other Carbohydrates shows the number of digestible complex carbohydrates not considered a sugar (natural or added) and includes additives like stabilizers and starchy thickening agents.

Now, isn’t that crystal clear?


What’s The Difference Between Jam, Jelly, And Fruit Butter?

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What they have in common:  they are all made from some form of fruit.

Jams and jellies are made from fruit mixed with sugar and pectin. For jelly the fruit comes from fruit juice.  For jam the fruit comes from fruit pulp or crushed fruit.  Pectin, an indigestible carbohydrate found in the cell walls of most fruit, gels when heated with sugar in water and is what causes jam and jelly to thicken.

Jam is usually a thick, chunky, and fruity spread.  Because it includes whole fruit it tends to have more vitamins and minerals than jelly. To make jam, fruit is cooked with sugar and water until it starts to soften and break up. Natural pectin is released with the long slow cooking. Some people make jam without extra added pectin – just relying on the naturally released pectin.

Because jelly is made with fruit juice – not whole fruit  — pectin has to be added for it to firm up. Without the natural tartness of whole fruit, jelly tends to be a little sweeter than jam.

Fruit butter is puréed fruit that is cooked down to a thick consistency. Fruit, with or without skin, is cooked until it is soft, put through a sieve to remove seeds and skin and/or pureed, and then flavored, if desired, with spices or lemon juice.  Fruit butter is cooked until it is thick and doesn’t have pectin added to set the mixture.  Because fruit butter is supposed to be thick and sort of buttery it is usually, but not always, made with fruit like apples, pears, or peaches rather than “seedy” berries.

What About Calories And Sugar?

Jams and jellies are high in sugar in content.  Fruit butters tend to be the winner in the calorie and carb counts — although it is possible to make or buy low or no sugar (or artificially sweetened) products.

Here’s some nutritional info:

Does Clean Eating Mean Making Sure You Wash Your Veggies?

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What Is Clean Eating?

Clean eating is about wholesome and natural food – food that isn’t full of chemicals, preservatives, additives and isn’t processed and/or refined.

Clean eating is healthy eating. All of the whole, natural, unprocessed foods in a clean diet are chock full of vitamins, minerals, fiber, and other nutrition that will help you control your weight, blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol, and other markers important for good health.

What To Do

To eat clean, the April 2011 edition of Environmental Nutrition lists seven basic behaviors:

  • Eat fresh, uncomplicated, whole food – and choose it in its natural state.
  • Eat smaller meals – perhaps three small meals and two snacks each day instead of behemoth portions.
  • Eat good carbs  — keep the healthy carbs like veggies, legumes, whole grains, and fruit in your life – and ditch the processed and refined ones like the “whites”  (sugar, flour, rice).
  • Incorporate healthy fats like the monounsaturated fat in olive oil and nuts and cut down on the saturated fats found in dairy and animal products and the trans fats in processed baked and fried foods.
  • Eat high quality lean protein like fish, chicken, turkey, lean meat, and low or non-fat dairy.
  • Make water your beverage of choice.
  • Move your body.

By the way, you do need to wash your vegetables – and fruit.  Wash them really well in plenty of plain water.  No need for detergents or fancy vegetable washes.

How To Figure Out The Carbs On Nutrition Labels

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Trying to interpret the carbohydrates on nutrition facts labels can be downright confusing.  There’s a number for total carbohydrates but then there are subheadings for dietary fiber, sugars, and sometimes insoluble fiber, sugar alcohols, and other carbohydrates.

What Does Everything Mean?

  • Total Carbohydrate, shown in grams, is first. It gives you the total number of usable carbs per serving. This number includes starches, complex carbohydrates, dietary fiber, added sugars, and non-digestible additives.
  • The subheadings under Total Carbohydrate are Dietary Fiber, sometimes broken down into Soluble and Insoluble Fiber; Sugars; and sometimes categories for Sugar Alcohols and/or Other Sugars. The sum of these numbers will not always equal the total carbs because starches (types of carbs often used as binders or thickeners) aren’t required to be listed on food labels.
  • Dietary Fiber, shown in grams, gives you the amount of fiber per serving. Dietary fiber is indigestible, usually passes through the intestinal tract without being absorbed, doesn’t raise your blood sugar levels, and slows down the impact of the other carbs in a meal. Subtracting the non-impact carbs – the ones that don’t affect blood sugar (fiber and sugar alcohols) from the total carbs gives you the number of net (also called usable or impact) carbs – the ones that do affect your blood sugar.
  • Sugars gives you the total amount of carbohydrate, in grams, from naturally occurring sugars like lactose (milk sugar) and fructose (fruit sugar) PLUS any added sugars like high fructose corn syrup, brown and white sugar, cane juice, etc. Added sugars are the sugars and syrups added to foods during processing or preparation.  They add calories but little or no nutrients.
  • You can determine if there are a lot of added sugars by checking the product’s ingredients label. Ingredients are listed in order of quantity so if added sugars (white/brown sugar, corn syrup, etc.) are listed in the top three or four ingredients you can guess that the bulk of the sugars are added, not naturally occurring.
  • Some products, although not all, separately list Sugar Alcohols. You might see mannitol, sorbitol, xylitol, erythritol, and others on the ingredients label. If the package says the product is “sugar-free” or has “no sugar added” it must list the sugar alcohols in the ingredients. If more than one type of sugar alcohol is listed, there must be a line for sugar alcohol grams on the nutrition label.
  • Other Carbohydrates shows the number of digestible complex carbohydrates not considered a sugar (natural or added) and includes additives like stabilizers and starchy thickening agents.

They don’t make it easy, do they?

Are you Eating Sugar When You Think You Aren’t?

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What Are Carbohydrates?

They are the sugars, starches, and fiber we eat. Carbohydrates (carbs for short) are carbon dioxide combined with water and,  except for fiber, are transformed by your body into blood sugar, mostly glucose,  the body’s basic fuel.

An enormous number of foods contain carbs. They’re the main energy source for your body and the main source of calories in just about every culture’s diet. They have four calories per gram, the same as protein. Fat has nine calories per gram.

Which Foods Are High In Carbs?

Which of these foods contain lots of carbs:  fruit juice, table sugar, nonfat milk, bananas, blueberries, hamburger buns, multi-grain bread, pumpkin pie, popcorn, scones, corn, Hershey’s kisses, honey, sweet potatoes? If you chose them all, bingo!

Does It Matter What Kind Of Carbs You Eat?

Yes and no.  Yes for nutrition, no for calories because regardless of the source, the calories per gram are the same whether they come from chocolate or oranges.   Since most carbs are broken down into glucose does it really matter which kind you eat?  Or, said another way, is the energy in a teaspoonful of sugar (does it really help the medicine go down?) any better or worse than the same amount of carbs in peas, potatoes, or pepsi?

If You’re Looking For A Simple Answer – It’s Complex

Most carbs come from plant based foods:  fruit, veggies, grains, and legumes (lentils, peas, beans, peanuts). The only animal based foods with lots of carbs are dairy products.

The Two Basic Types Of Carbohydrates

Simple carbohydrates are sugars like the glucose and fructose in fruit and some veggies; the lactose in milk; and the sucrose from cane or beet sugar.  Table sugar is pure sucrose. Sugars added to many processed foods such as soda and baked goods account for a large portion of the simple carbs we eat and are the main reason that sugar makes up 16% of all calories Americans consume (it was 11% twenty years ago.) A third of the added sugar that we eat comes from soda.


Complex carbohydrates are chains of simple sugars.  They are primarily starches and the fiber found in plant foods. Foods rich in complex carbs include things like grains and grain products (bread, pasta), beans, potatoes, and corn.

Simple Or Complex – Which Is Preferable?

The answer isn’t totally straight forward.  A lot of foods high in sugar, especially the ones with added sugars, qualify as “empty calories,” or foods that have lots of calories and few nutrients. Complex carbs usually carry along a suitcase filled with nutritional extras. Dairy products and fruit both contain simple carbs, but because of the other nutrients they contain they play an important part in a healthy diet.

When you choose carbohydrate foods, pick the ones with complex carbs. Try to eat  fruit and veggies with fiber — the fruit is better than the juice. Whole grains (think brown rice instead of white, multi-grain bread instead of sandwich buns) are more nutritious than refined grains because they still have the bran and the germ, parts often removed in refined grains. Because of this they are digested more slowly and have a more even effect on your blood sugar.

Because of their fiber content, the same is true for vegetables and beans.  Refined carbs or simple sugars are digested rapidly and often cause your blood sugar to spike, or elevate quickly, and then drop  — which can leave you feeling tired, irritable — and craving more sugar to get your blood sugar levels back up again.