Carbs in spice???

[suzyque]

I went to fitday and was punching in the food I've eaten today and 1/2 a teaspoon of garlic powder, black pepper and paprika all have 1 gram of carbs. I easily eat a tablespoon of garlic and black pepper everyday, that's 12grams of carbs for spice!!! Does anyone count spice carbs is this something I should worry about.

thanks suzy

[Brook]

You should count every carb that goes in your mouth.

[adreliluc]

A tablespoon of garlic and pepper is a lot...are you sure you actually 'eat' that much??

Personally I've never counted the carbs in my spices but I only sprinkle a little on when I'm cooking. I do watch spices like cinnamon cause I have that often and know that has carbs.

I kind of see 'most' spices the way I see sugar free gum. I doubt either will make you fat.
But then again - you never know!! lol. So better safe than sorry I guess, at least in the beginning!

[NavyWife3]

Good catch! I never even thought those had carbs! I think if used sparingly then ther is no need to count, but its up to you!

[woodym]

Many if not most spices are very high in carbs, gram for gram, but thankfully each gram goes a long way.

Most spices are exempted from having to report "nutrition facts" on the label, and over the years this has fostered the illusion that they have no food value.

[not2late]

Originally Posted by NavyWife3

Good catch! I never even thought those had carbs! I think if used sparingly then ther is no need to count, but its up to you!

That's the key---sparingly. A standard recipe might use 1 clove of garlic for 4 servings. That's not too bad and you might get away not counting it into your totals. However, there are some recipes where the spice is used in large amounts per serving.

For example, some folks count cocoa powder as a "spice". Most recipes I've seen for cocoa powder may have up to 2 or 3 cocoa carbs per serving. In that case, you need to count those carbs.

But as Brook said, better to count everything. If you use fitday.com, you can enter the ingredients of a recipe into it and see what the net carbs amounts are for the entire recipe. From there you can figure out how many net carbs each serving will yeild. That's the safest way to go, imo.

With that said, I think spending a few net carbs on garlic or cinnamon is more healthful than spending those net carb on an artificial sweetener or a low carb frankenfood.