Please forgive me for asking such a stupid question but where do you find carb counting information on vegetarian foods? I love to go out to eat and love to try new foods but I can not seem to find carb information. Am I looking in the wrong place for the information or is it all just a big secret? Please if anyone can help? I have tried the dailyplate.com, fitday.com, dietfact.com and several carb counting books and have had no luck.
What sort of vegetarian foods? I use fitday for a lot of things. Some things, like casseroles or other mixed dishes, I have to estimate the amount of all the different components of the food. For instance, my broccoli-rice casserole for lunch is about 3/4 cup brown rice, 1/2 cup broccoli, and 1/2 tablespoon nutritional yeast. I add those all up to get the total amount.
A general rule of thumb is that grains (like rice and also pasta) are 45g/cup. Low carb vegetables (green beans, lettuce, tomatoes, soy) are 3g/cup. Beans are 30g/cup (lentils are slightly less). And peas and corn are about 10g/cup.
I have talked with a dietician about what I eat and she was not able to tell me how to count the carbs on foods that I eat. I love to eat Oriental or Mexican food when I go out. How do I count that? I love General TSO Tofu or Spinach salad with Tofu (no cheese, sour cream or no shell). I am having to redose the insulin a second or a third time or having my BGs go low. I am trying to keep my blood sugars under 250 and above 70 and not doing a very good job at it either.
Next stupid question. What is nutritional yeast?
Those dishes can be tricky because of the sauces. General Tso sauce is pretty sugary. If it’s something you eat pretty often, you can try trial and error. Test before you eat the dish, make your best guess about how much medicine to take, and test a few hours after. If it’s too high, try more medicine next time; if it’s too low, try less. That’s how I figured out the dosing for my favorite burrito (tortilla, beans, rice, mushrooms, onions, bell pepper, pico de gallo, and avocado, it’s a pretty high carb treat). Tofu itself is pretty low carb. 1 cup is 10g of carb but 5g of that is fiber. You might be able to just try the carb count for General Tso’s chicken since tofu and chicken are fairly similar.
Most chain restaurants have nutrition information on their Web sites or on paper at the restaurant. Pei Wei’s nutrition information is here: http://www.peiwei.com/nutrition.htm (there’s a link at the bottom of the page). It looks like their orange tofu and vegetables is 45g carb (4g fiber) not including rice or noodles. Orange tofu is pretty similar to General Tso tofu.
Nutritional yeast is a condiment that tastes savory, somewhat cheesy. It comes in flakes or a powder, and a lot of people like to eat it sprinkled on popcorn.
Thank you for all of your help.
Yes I would and thank you. What is the name of the cookbook?
I use this website to calculate carbs for homemade dishes.
http://www.carbohydrate-counter.org/
When we go out to eat, we usually go to the restaurant’s website before to get the nutritional information, if it is available.
I have two cookbooks and one website that I use alot for vegetarian recipes:
The Enchanted Broccoli Forest
The Voluptuous Vegan
www.vanessipes.com
If you have a smart phone you can use an app called my fitness pal. It has a website as well. I use it and it gets me pretty darn close. Even closer if the food is already built into its library. This app has the most foods that are out there then any other app. The foods that are not I break down into what they are and then calculate from there. It keeps track of what you eat and breaks down a day to day list of all the items such as carbs, protien, fats, ect. Very useful and my dr. really likes to see what I have been eating this is a goto tool for me.