Keeping track of the carbohydrates you eat allows you to better manage conditions like diabetes. The nutrition information labels on food packaging, along with the ingredient list and certain, specific claims, can help you figure out where this food might fit into your daily diet. Be aware that proper dietary management, be it because of diabetes or another reason, is best handled collectively between you, your doctor and a registered dietician.
Step 1
Turn the packaging over so you're viewing the back. Look for the "Nutrition Facts" label.
Step 2
Scan the label until you see "Total Carbohydrates." Underneath that you'll see additional listings for at least "Dietary Fiber" and "Sugars." You might also see numbers for soluble fiber, insoluble fiber, sugar alcohol and other carbohydrate.
Step 3
Note the number of grams by each item and, further to the right, percents for some of the items. These figures are based on the size of one serving of the food. The percents denote how much of a daily calorie intake the grams represent, but realize that this daily calorie intake is a generic 2,000 per day. Your particular intake will most likely vary.
Step 4
Look back at the top of the label and find the number of servings in the package. The actual number of carbohydrates you take in will depend on how many of those servings you eat.
Step 5
Locate the number of grams of dietary fiber. The University of California, San Francisco, and Harvard's Joslin Diabetes Center both say that when counting carbohydrates for diabetes management, you can subtract the number of fiber grams from the total carbohydrates, as fiber doesn't affect blood glucose. However, always check with your doctor first to ensure this procedure is appropriate for your individual situation.
Step 6
Look at the line for sugar alcohol if the label lists one. If the packaging has the claims "sugar-free" or "no sugar added" listed anywhere, the product must have sugar alcohol amounts listed in the nutrition label. Check the ingredients as well; if more than one type of sugar alcohol is listed, the nutrition label must contain a line for sugar alcohol grams. UCSF says that you can count only half of the amount of sugar alcohol grams toward a meal's carbohydrate count, but again, check with your doctor first before assuming that you can.
Step 7
Scan the ingredient list for fruits and milk products. UCSF notes that the natural sugars from these foods are already included in the sugar amount in the nutrition label.
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