When measuring carbs in spaghetti (using a scale) does the nutritional information on the package refer to the uncooked or cooked spaghetti? I am using a pump so really like to calculate the exact amount of carbs I’m eating.
Most of them will specify if it is for cooked, or uncooked. If it says 57 grams, for the serving, it is for uncooked.
The spaghetti I’m eating now says an 85 gram serving is 62 carbs on the nutritional label. I’m eating 90g (cooked) and I just have a hard time believing that is 66 grams of carbs and my entire meal is 83! That just seems way too high carb. Even though I know spaghetti is high in carbs I don’t think it should be that much.
I bolused for a 50g meal (halved the spaghetti carbs) and that “feels” right from 18+ years of T1, but I would like to be able to measure properly i the future instead of just guestimating.
It is very high carb, and the fiber slows it down… Even the lowest carb spaguetti I have found, including fiber, is 40 grams of carb for a 57 gram serving size. About 35 g without fiber. Here in the USA, 57 grams of uncooked pasta is one serving, and it’s pretty standard. To me, it sounds like your measurement is for uncooked…
Even the lowest carb spaguetti I have found, including fiber, is 40 grams of carb for a 57 gram serving size. About 35 g without fiber.
I don’t understand this, as fibre is supposed to be subtracted from carbohydrates, so wouldn’t “including fibre” be fewer carbs than not including it?
I suppose I will test in two hours and see where I’m at. If the spaghetti was in fact 66g of carbs and I only bolused for 33g you can bet I will be quite high! I just find it odd that all these years I have always bolused for spaghetti at say 40-50g for a fairly decent-sized serving, and I have never had a problem with it causing highs … which makes me think the nutritional information must be for uncooked spaghetti and then I am weighing it after it’s cooked and absorbed all the water. I’ve never been able to find a really factual answer on this, either. Maybe I should call up a nutritionist and ask.
The spaghetti I’m eating tonight is whole-wheat, high-fibre stuff, not white spaghetti (which I never eat …) if that makes any difference with the serving sizes and weights.
Ummm… The fiber makes a difference in net carbs, but not in serving size. The cooked serving size starch content will vary greatly, especially depending on how it’s cooked. The longer you cook it, the more of a glycemic load you will have… Also, if the pasta is refrigerated, it develops resistant starch – which cannot be digested by the body – and it causes a lower glycemic load…
Every person responds differently to pasta, and fiber… Some people will not really process fiber for glucose at all, and some (like me), eventually will… While it’s nice to try to figure it out, and play with it, pasta is one of those exceptions of foods that can be trickier to measure (and even some carb factor sites recommend just measuring it cooked (1/3 cup is 15 grams of carbs, etc) vs. weighing it. If you’re past experience has served you well… I’d go with that, instead. 
Usually I have measured pasta instead of weighing it. Just in the past year or so I’ve started to use a gram scale and carbohydrate factors (as discussed in Pumping Insulin) to more precisely measure carbs so I can bolus for them more exactly, and I’ve found it has a huge impact on my control when I use it compared to when I just measure foods. (Plus, I feel more normal when I am able to at least serve foods using utensils onto a plate rather than using a measuring cup in group settings …) I was hoping the same method could be used with spaghetti, but from what you say maybe it can’t.
Yeah, I found it on this carb factor site… (For me, it works better to measure pre-cooked, because otherwise I eat the whole darn box of spaghetti… lol but for carb factors, I guess it does’t work so well):
**An important exclusion to this generalization is pasta, which may be more accurately measured with a measuring cup depending on how it is cooked. Because the carbohydrate count of pasta depends on how long it has been boiled and how much liquid it has absorbed, the volume of pasta is generally a more accurate reflection of the total carbs than the gram weight. You can weigh dry pasta very accurately, but be sure to cook it al dente for an accurate count!
To be sure, take the weight of the entire package and divide by the number of servings listed on teh package. My pasta is 56g (2 oz) uncooked is 41g fiber. I know it is uncooked because it is a one pound package and there are 8 - 2 oz servings in the package. I am a pasta freak, so I need to know exactly how much I have to limit myself. = )
Thank you for that information! That website was extremely useful.