Building Competency in Diabetes Education THE ESSENTIALS

BASAL-BOLUS INSULIN THERAPY | 12-92

• US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Nutrient Database: https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/. • Beyond the Basics Meal Planning Poster (156): This method of meal planning can be applied to carbohydrate counting, but carbohydrate counting can be successfully performed without knowledge of Beyond the Basics. Food composition lists and books (some examples are as follows): • Health Services and Health Protection Branch. Nutrient Values of Some Common Foods . Ottawa, ON: Minister of National Health and Welfare; 2008. www.healthcanada.gc.ca/cnf. • Natow AB, Heslin J. The Complete Food Counter . New York, NY: Simon and Schuster Inc; 2011. • Netzer C. The Complete Book of Food Counts . New York, NY: Dell Publishing; 2012. • Pennington JA, Spungen J. Bowes and Church’s Food Values of Portions Commonly Used . 19th ed. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott; 2010. • Borushek A. The Calorie King Calorie, Fat & Carbohydrate Counter . Family Health Publications; 2018. www.calorieking.com. • Hotzmeister L. Diabetes Carbohydrate & Fat Gram Guide, Alexandria,Va: American Diabetes Association; 2017. Food labels provide valuable information for those who count carbohydrates. The following are some tips on reading a food label: • Identify the serving size. The nutrient information will be based on this amount of the product. Be aware that the serving size listed may not be the amount that the person plans to eat, nor will it necessarily be a practical amount of food. • Be careful not to confuse the weight of the portion of food reported in grams with the amount of carbohydrate, also reported in grams. • Be aware that the total amount of carbohydrate in grams, includes starch, sugars and fibre, but dietary fibre does not contribute to the glucose effect of food (157). Therefore, for foods containing fibre, using total carbohydrate from a label will overestimate the amount of carbohydrate that will contribute to BG. Fibre should be subtracted from the total carbohydrate; the amount of carbohydrate remaining is referred to as “available carbohydrate”.