I noticed recently that it seems the US labels carb content differently to other countries. While most countries count sugar and starch as the carb content, the US counts fiber as well. To me it seems that the non-US system is more accurate. On the foods I took a quick look at in the US, using the other method can drop the carb content buy up to almost 80% or so. For instance, a bowl of all bran extra fiber under the US method contains 20g of carb but includes 13g of fiber, if this was labeled elsewhere it would only show 7g of carb. Thats almost 80% difference. Another example is Activia peach yogurt. The US version has 13g of carb, 3g of which are fiber, but the UK version contains 10g of carb for the same amount.

Does anyone know why that is and which method is correc? It seems that there could be huge differences in daily carb intake just by the way foods are labeled. Not all foods match all bran extra fiber but most I eat on a regular basis are 15-25% different. Theoretically I could be eating my 300g of carb per day in the US but that would be labeled as 60g elsewhere, although its more likely that it would be 200-225g rather than 300g.

When I learned to count carbohydrates about 10 years ago in the US, I was told to subtract the fiber from the total grams of carbs. It makes sense, since we don't digest the fiber. So, the bran flakes with 20 grams of carb and 13 grams of fiber would have 7 grams of carb, which is how some other countries label it. I do not know the reason why the US includes the fiber in the carb count.

I think they are kept separate because nutritional guidelines now often include the number of grams of fibre you should eat per day.

Cora

Here in the US, the "rule of thumb" is that if the fiber content is over 5 grams, you can then deduct the fiber from the total carb count.

However, this does not work for everyone. I'm one of those diabetics for whom it doesn't really matter whether the carbs come from sugar or fiber...I use the total carb count in all cases, and I rarely go low. I suspect that if I were to deduct the fiber and just bolus for the remaining carbs, I would go high.

Cora has a good point, though...it's probably listed because some people do try to keep their fiber intake up to a certain number of grams a day. And, since fiber is a carb (absorbable or not), it gets indented under carbs.

Ruth