"X" wrote in message
news
On Mon, 16 Feb 2004 09:38:55 -0500, "Jenny"
wrote:

Stargazer,

Based on the nutritional info you supplied for the bagels, the fiber has
already been deducted and the true carb count is 18. You've been
scammed..

If you multiply the given protein grams by 4 and the fat grams by 9 you
get
the number of non-carbohydrate calories accounted for. Subtract this
from
the total calories given, and you get the calories from carbs. If you
divide the calories from carbs by 4 you get the grams of non-fiber carb.

Serving size 1 bagel, calories 190,

fat 4.5 (sat fat 0.5) == 40.5 calories from fat
protein 20g ==80 calories from protein

Total non-carb calories 120.5.

Carb calories (total 190 - total non-carb calories) =69.5

Carb grams (calories divided by 4) = 17.375.


I thought you could subtract fiber from the carb count and get net
carbs.

17.375 grams of carbs - 11 grams fiber = 6.375 net grams of carbs.

or am I missing something.

You can, provided that the total carb count is the 'real' total (which
according to our labeling, it doesn't have to be - a lot of the low-carb
bars subtract sugar alcohol from their 'total' right upfront and never show
it at all). According to the formula used (9 cal per each gram of fat, 4
cal per each gram of protein, and the leftover calories (total calories
minus fat/protein calorie totals) divided by four (because each gram of
carb=4 calories) to get the total g of carbs (already excluding fiber). So
what she's saying is that the 18g total is already excluding fiber, which
makes sense.

However, I'm a little confoozled by the formula. I went back and tried it
on some foods in FitDay, and for some of them it was dead on (such as
psyllium husk - the total carbs for those per cup serving is around 108g,
with 96g of that being fiber - and the formula came out at 12g of carbs).
However for other foods it didn't come out right - such as flax seed (which
for one cup shows as around 53g total carbs, 24g fiber, and the formula
makes it 43g carbs). For some baked goods, it came out very close (such as
wheat bran bread), and for others it didn't (for French bread, the formula
total actually came out higher than the total carbs listed, though only
fractionally so). Even some fruits and veggies - broccoli came out pretty
close by the formula (4.6g total, 2.6g fiber, 2.8g formula), avocado less so
(10.79g total, 7.3g fiber, 5.5g by the formula). So I'm not sure why it
works well on some foods and not on others, unless I'm also missing
something.