Ok. So I have been a diabetic now for 24 years and I am pretty good about carb counting and figuring out which foods I need to avoid no matter what and things like that. However I was recently thrown off when a package I was reading listed the total carbs as 25g for the serving size and then below it the package said other carbs were 9g. So my question is are the “other carbs” counted in to the “total carbs” or is it something I need to calculate into the total carbs? I don’t have insurance so i can’t ask an endo or dietitian, etc. cause I don’t have one.
I believe the “Other” carbs are just the regular carbs. Sometimes you’ll see, as a subheading under the total carbs, a breakdown including Sugar Alcohols or Fiber. (The rules on how to handle these are somewhat debatable, but many say to count half of the sugar alcohols, and none of the fibers). The “other” is probably just the remainder, which makes the total equal the number at the top.
Do you have a photo or example of the label? What kind of product is it? That may help us figure it out.
It was a box of Fiber One Honey Squares. It says carbohydrates 25g and then below it Dietary fiber 10g,soluble fiber 2g, sugars 3g, and then other carbohydrates 9g. I thought that it may be included in the total carbs since that is in bold print and other carbs is in a smaller font, but having never seen this I wasn’t sure and figured I should ask since I bolused for the 25g and found my sugar in the mid 200’s later on, which I thought was odd since surprisingly cereal never raises my sugar out of range. I will try the counting half idea for the other carbs and see if that works out. If not I may just have to add this to the can not eat list.
Hmm. If you bolused for the whole 25 and you were high afterwards, I don’t know that it makes sense to lower it! (Did you include insulin to cover the milk?). In this case, the “other” is probably to bring it up to 25, and the fact that it really adds up to 24 is just due to rounding error. Honestly, I’m surprised the sugars are only 3 g though, since there’s honey in the cereal. Maybe you’re dealing with a dawn phenomenon, or maybe it’s just one of those unexplained flukey things. I’d suggest trying it later in the day to see how your body reacts, since there are other strange things (liver dump) that happens in the morning.
The other carbs are included in the total carbs. We had the same question at my Diabetes Support group meeting. The only time you would have to add anything is if you were to add something to what you are eating, example pasta and sauce just need to add the 2 total carbs on the package.
Hey guys thanks for the info. I included the milk as well. Sometimes there are foods that just react badly with me and I think this may be one of them. I’ll try it again once more and see if I have the same reaction, if I do I just won’t get it again…Honey has 17g of carbs for 1 tablespoon, so with the serving size of cereal only being 2/3 of a cup there is very likely not a whole tablespoon of honey per serving which is why there are only 3g of sugar. I have all sorts of unexplained reactions to certain foods, like light yogurt for a while actually lowered my BS, if I eat protein, even though they say it hardly has an effect on BS it can shoot mine up. My mom even used to be able to tell if I was high or low by how thick the ring of my eye was so I’m used to the flukey stuff.lol.