HI~ Im Kaci,
Im a mom of a very recently dx’ed type 1. just two weeks ago.
I would like to know if any of you know of any thing I can do to make things eaiser as EX. my friend told me to take the ceral and measure it all out in baggies and label the carb’s with the carbs in 1 cup of milk on the bag and put them all back in the box so anyone can eat out of it but when Hunter get a bowl he has it all figured out for him and he can do it himself. with out ME fixing everything for him. Its worked out great! he is 11 and so independent, he loves doing his own shots and wont let me check his blood, he likes being in control of it. I am so proud of him! dos anyone have any more ideas???
I am so glad you mentioned this. I now know I am not crazy… LOL
I have a pretty big pantry and I do exactly that (baggies with labels, minus the milk carbs though) with cereal, as well as with pretty much anything else that can be dispensed in portions, i.e. pretzels, chips, cookies… I have a black sharpie marker right there on the shelve and I often go though and write big “carb” number on anything that my daughter might want to eat. I even buy apple sauce/fruit cups in a six-pack, take them out of package and write numbers on each one.
My daughter is 6 now, diagnosed at three, and she is already so independent. She is on a pump now, so whenever she wants a snack, she just tests, picks whatever she wants, puts those numbers in the pump and eats. It’s been wonderful!
Another must have is a digital food scale that measures in grams and in ounces.
I also have a plastic box of non-perishable snacks and juice boxes in my car, because you just never know…
Hi Kaci – One thing I’ve done that helps out is keeping a laundry basket in the bottom of our pantry full of 15 gram snacks. This way my daughter can grab any snack she wants and we know the carb count. I am also a strong believer in using baggies. Many a Sunday evening in our household is spent measuring and bagging cereals, crackers, frozen waffles, etc.
Just curious…what food scale do you have and do you like it? I really need to get one and have been putting it off.
You guys all have great ideas. I don’t have any to add as we are new at this and my daughter is only 3 so I pretty much get her anything that she may want to eat.
You know…I might have something to add. I started a notebook for Isabelle writing down things that she is eating and how many carbs there are in it. This is helpful when anyone other then me is keeping her since they can just look it up and she what was done in the past. I also have started cutting out the nutrition information on anything that we have in the house and put it in a notebook that way if we need to know the carbs on something and can’t find the package we have it there.
I bought a salter scale model 1440. It can be taken anywhere and you can type in the name of the food and it calculates all the nutritional info including net carbs. it is very helpful!
It’s strange, but I can not locate the manufacturer name on the scale… All I see is AW-K100. I got it as a present from my MIL, so I don’t even know where it was purchased.
I do like it a lot, because you can add an empty container and zero out the weight, so it only counts the weight of a food you add to the container and not both (and if you want to add another food type to the same container, then you zero out again, etc.).
We have a spreadsheet that we have put a lot of our Daughter’s favorite foods on with their portion size and carb counts, kind of like what Lisa suggested. I’ll see if I can attach it. I’m also going to try to attach a candy carb sheet, we use this at halloween.
9069-MeliaFavFoodCarbCounts.xls (19 KB)
9070-candycarbcounts.doc (69.5 KB)
Thanks! I have to go look for one soon.
Kathy these are great! What a great idea.
Kathy!! THese list are Awsome!! thank you soooo much!
Angela where did you buy the scale and how does it work?
thanks~ Kaci
One book I highly recommend is a “Calorie, Fat & Carbohydrate Counter” by Calorie King (http://www.calorieking.com)! I have one copy in my car and I left a copy at my daughter’s school. The book is small in size and not really expensive, only $8.
It has pretty much all the basic food groups (like fruits, veggies, grains, breads, junk food, etc.), as well as most of the fast food places and their carb counts. It came in handy so many times, I can hardly do without it.