Questions About Carbs

Carb Counts

Two weeks before her wedding, Valerie tried a low-carb diet for the first time. She didn't see results until she looked back at her wedding pictures, and she has since gained back any inches she lost (she knew she didn't lose any actual weight). Since getting married, she's just tried to watch what she eats instead of going to diet extremes.

Wanting to be a good wife, she had dinner on the table each night. Her suppers usually consisted of some kind of meat item and a starch like potatoes, pasta, rice or bread. Since her husband didn't like vegetables, she rarely made them, and if she did, she just made enough for herself. Soon her clothes were beginning to fit tighter and she couldn't figure out why. Once again she was tempted to try a low carb diet plan, but this time she wanted to do it with more focus. Upon doing the research and giving it a try for a week, she determined that it wasn't for her. But she did learn enough about carbs to try a little experiment. She cut out potatoes, pasta and bread from their supper. Her husband didn't miss those things, and even though she did miss them, she didn't miss them as much as she thought she would. And she saw her weight start to come off. So she knew there had to be something to this whole low carb dieting business. Instead of restricting her carb intake as drastically as some plans suggest, she decided to learn about good carbs and bad carbs and try to limit her intake of bad ones.

Carb Counts in Unlikely Places

What Valerie learned when she was researching carb counts surprised her. For example:

Most people believe meats don't have carbs, but in reality, deli meats have anywhere from 2-4 grams of carbs per serving.
Imitation crab meat has up to 15 grams of carbs in a 4-ounce serving. In fact, lots of seafood (imitation or not) is fairly high in carbs, as carb counts go. A 4-ounce serving of clams has 5.8 grams, a 4-ounce serving of mussels has 8.4 grams, and a 4-ounce serving of oysters has 8 grams.
Milk has 11-14 grams of carbs in an 8-ounce serving
Low fat or no fat foods generally have more carbs than the whole fat versions because sugars are added to compensate for the flavor missing through fat reduction.
One garlic clove has one carb
One tablespoon of lemon or lime juice has one carb
Fat-free mayo has 3-4 grams of carbs per tablespoon
Balsamic vinegar has 2 grams of carbs per tablespoon

In addition, food labels don't always reveal accurate carb counts. If a serving size has less than a gram of carbs, food manufacturers are allowed to list that food as having 0 grams of carbs. To the non-carb counter, this is probably a taking it a bit too far, but hidden carb counts can really add up fast. People who are seriously limiting their carbs (to the tune of 20 grams a day) have to consider every gram, every half gram and every quarter gram because carb counts do count.