As a diabetic family we do math all the time. Nothing new, not that exciting, no big deal. Yeah, well….when we moved to New Zealand things changed. Labels changed, measuring tools changed…MATH CHANGED. Almost all of the labels for foods here are done by weight for serving sizes. Everything….pretzels, yogurt, peanut butter (really, peanut butter?)…you name it. I did think to pack a measuring cup to bring with us. Thinking, huh, the corporate apartment might not have a measuring cup or it might be in metric. I thought I had it covered. Nope. So the first month while waiting for our furniture to arrive I spent dumping out entire containers of yogurt or bags of pretzels and dividing them into the amounts of servings per package…to get my carbs per servings. Funny? Maybe. Pain in the Rear? Absolutely.
On top of that, I noticed a lot of the foods like pasta for example had less carbs than in the states. So, my standard of one cup of pasta equals approx. 45 carbs was not true any more. I found out at the kids first doctor visit that the labels ring true here, they take out the fiber count for you. Then there is the revelation, oh yeah….I was supposed to be subtracting fiber. Ooops (as both kids turn to look at me like “How could you forget, MOM?”)
Thankfully I do have a scale that arrived with all our stuff. It has made life much easier. I do have to remind myself every so often that what was in the States is most likely not what it is here and to make sure I read every single label. It’s like being a new diabetic parent all over again. The confusing math…”wait, crap, is that right?” And then add in two diabetic kids on two different MATH programs. If it’s hectic….forget about it. I end up doing math with the kids 3 and 4 times to double check me and them…and then have Mike double check us. It’s not pretty, I am sure!
The above was a post I did earlier in the week on my personal blog…thought I would share.
