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!
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Thank you everyone, I will be sure to check out those websites!
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!
I have a lot of issues with the data sources for many of the places. I agree, the USDA is a consistent source. What I have found is that I often want to just run a recipe through a calculator, and in that case I have found the recipe calculator at about.com very helpful. It lets you paste in the text, just as you have written above (well you have to add line breaks) and then calculates the total nutrition and nutrition per serving.
You said they were large bananas, so I went with the program. You are correct--weighing is a lot more accurate.
That's a great tool. Thanks Brian.
I second the food.com nutritional info-- its pretty cool. People can set up recipe groups on there too-- wonder if there are many for diabetics...
It even creates a cute little nutrition label! This makes it so easy to print and put into my recipe book!
On every package there should be nutrition facts. For example flour is usually around 96 carbs per cup. With fruit you will need to use a book like Calorie King and then weigh your bananas to figure out the exact carb count. After adding up all ingredients divide by the number of muffins.