Recipe net carbs vs. exploded recipe

Lisa_O

I'm new to the discussion forum, but I've been using cronometer for several months. I have entered a lot of recipes and haven't run across this problem until today. I created a recipe, and the carb count was higher than I thought it should be (and higher than the recipe source information). To test it, I added it to my diary then exploded the recipe. There is a large discrepancy between the carbs of the recipe (13.1 net carbs per serving) and the individual ingredients (1.1 net carbs total). Can someone help me out with this? I'd much rather not have to explode the recipe each time I add it to my diary to get accurate info. Thanks!

Aaron

Hi Lisa, can you double check you're not accidentally comparing carbs vs net-carbs? Since we display both in the app it can be easy to sometimes mistakenly compare one vs the other. If that doesn't explain things here, please email us at support@cronometer.com with some more details (the actual recipe, etc..) so we can further investigate for you.

Lisa_O

Hi, Aaron. I have e-mailed the recipe and question. Thanks!

Linda_P3

@Lisa_O , @Aaron, @Frank

This was something I noticed the first time I added an Atkins snack to my diary, the net carbs were a lot higher than what I had expected and I no longer had the original packaging to check. I ended up only eating 1/3 of the serving in order to keep my 40g. of carbs for the day.

The next time I was adding a different Atkins snack to my diary, the same thing happened. I had the time to investigate along with the original packaging. I finally realized that although the sugar alcohol was listed in the ingredient panel on Cronometer, it was not deducted from the net carbs.

I have found that to be the case with many "sugar-free" processed foods. In order to accurately log my carbs, I have started to make a copy of the original food and deduct the sugar alcohol carbs from the total carb count.....I do this instead of changing the fiber because I don't want to think I've eaten more fiber in a day I actually have.

NOTE I have since heard different views on how/if sugar alcohols should be counted in net carbs. @Karen_Cronometer - do you have advice on this?

Aaron

@linda instead of making copies of the items, just untick this box in your settings and sugar alcohols will be deducted from net-carbs if that's what you want:

Karen_Cronometer

@Linda_P3

Great question! I won't sugarcoat it, I think us nerdy-types don't like subtracting sugar alcohols from total carbs because that is a broad category of molecules. Some have very little energy, like the erythritol you find in many Atkins products has about 0.2 kcal/g - very few calories, compared with regular old glucose which has 4 kcal/g.

There are other sugar alcohols that have higher energy values though, and are not negligible. A couple of examples, xylitol has about 2.4 kcal/g, sorbitol has 2.6 kcal/g and maltitol has 3 kcal/g. Still lower than glucose, but it depends on which sugar alcohol is in the food product whether or not you might want to discount the calories.

If you would like to remove the sugar alcohols from your net carbs calculation, we do have a setting which allows you to do so. Select Net Carbs, under the Macronutrient Settings in your Profile tab. By default sugar alcohols will be included in the calculation, but you can uncheck the box to have them subtracted from total carbs.

Best,

jerbir

Hi - has this issue been resolved, about the conflicting reporting on the carbs? While I prefer to rely on a recipe, it almost sounds like each recipe item should be entered separately (instead of relying on recipe)? For carb watchers, this is important, but I am new, and maybe not understanding the outcome of this discussion

Aaron

@jebir the conflicting carbs issue is only an issue in recipes that contain ingredients that have incorrectly entered data. If you're using good quality, well formed food entries from our database, you won't see any sort of discrepancy.

AmyKetos

How do you explode a recipe? I have one calculating carbs wrong, but can't figure out which ingredient is causing the discrepancy.

Aaron

@AmyKetos On the web version, right-click the recipe in your diary and you should see the command on the popup menu. On mobile app, swipe right on the diary item to show a button to get at the actions.