3 Methods to Count Carbohydrates - Method3 Estimating Carbohydrate Amounts

1 Determine the volume of the food item you’re going to eat. If you do not have measuring cups or a food scale handy, such as when you’re dining away from home, you can estimate portions by comparing the size of your food to a common object.

·         An average-sized adult fist, a baseball, and a pint of milk are each about the size of 1 cup. 

·         A child’s fist, a full cupcake wrapper, and a lightbulb are each about the size of ½ cup.

·         A golf ball and a large egg are each about the size of ¼ cup. 

2 Place your measuring device next to the food item. For example, place your fist directly next to the bowl of pasta to estimate how many cups of pasta you have. If the pasta takes up the same amount of space as your fist, you have about 1 cup. Move the food around on your plate if necessary to shape it into the size of your fist to help you better estimate.

3 Find the amount of carbohydrates for your food item. Use a nutritional chart that lists the amount of carbohydrates for commonly eaten foods to determine the amount of carbohydrates for your food item. The USDA makes an online tool that provides nutritional information for many foods. There are also many apps you can download onto a smartphone that provide nutritional information.

·         If you do not have a smartphone or access to the Internet while eating, considering keeping with you a list of the carbohydrate contents of foods you commonly eat. You could print out or write a list to keep in your wallet or purse.

·         Once you make a habit of counting carbohydrates, you will probably memorize the carbohydrate amounts in many of your favorite foods.

4 Calculate the amount of carbohydrates in your portion. Many nutritional guides will list the amount of carbohydrates per cup of food item. Multiply the amount of carbohydrates listed per cup by the amount of your serving size.

·         For example, if you are eating 2 ½ cups of pasta and a cup of pasta contains 45g of carbohydrates, multiply 45 by 2.5 to equal 112.5g of carbohydrates in your serving.

·         If you are eating ¾ cup of pasta, first convert the fraction into a decimal by dividing the first number by the second (3 divided by 4 equals 0.75), and then multiply the carbohydrate amount (45g) by that decimal amount (0.75) to equal 33.75g of carbohydrates in your serving.

Tips

·         Remember that the more fiber your food contains, the less carbohydrate your body will absorb. In fact, fiber helps push food through your body faster to prevent absorption of many substances, even calories.

·         You can purchase nutritional scales that will calculate the carbohydrate content, as well as many other contents such as calories and cholesterol, of different foods using a database contained within the scale (with the expensive model) or from the booklet that comes with the less-expensive model. You simply input the item number from the booklet or select it from the scale’s database and it does the calculations for you.