I used to eat a lot of salad, especially for lunch. Since entering the world of Diabetes, I really don't eat it. Well, I have a small salad at dinner. I only use balsalmic vinegar on my salad. But, I would put tomatoes, green peppers, onions (red of course), cucumbers and carrots, sunflower seeds and feta cheese. So, now, I have no idea what the carb content would be. Do I need to count each individual veggie? I do eat chicken taco salads and carb it at 52gms which seems to work BUT that is with me eating part of the tasty shell. Any ideas how to count a nice scrumptious, chocked full of veggie salad?
Yes, the only way is to count carbs of the individual ingredients. I use an EatSmart scale. It calculates carbs, protein, fat, sodium, calories, etc. It will also keep a total, so you don't have to add up ingredients. Makes life easier & gives accurate info. Hard to calculate using measurements like a cup since it depends on large or small veggies are cut.
Balsamic vinegar has carbs, unlike other types of vinegar.
If you are making your own salad, that is the ultimate. You can start with whole ingredients and you have total control. Like Gerri says, just count it up. I just eyeball it. I only count major carb items, tomatoes, carrots, onions and sometimes peppers. I pretty much give all the green veggies a pass. I am a fan of blue cheese, so it is often blue cheese all over for me, big chunks (hello there costco) and blue cheese dressing. I'll often put olives or luncheon meat on there. And if my salad is over about 4-5 cups, then I may have to bolus more just because of the volume.
I sort of guesstimate 5-15G of carbs, depending on how big the salad is and how many goodies are on it.
I've eaten the same, huge salad day after day, year after year and count it as 18 carbs; most of the carbs come from tomatoes and 1/2 avocado.