Urgent - Carbs and Fiber

Hi All,

I have always seen fiber listed on foods but never subtracted it from the carb count (here in SA we don't have TOTAL CARB, FIBER, NETT CARB, ACTIVE CARBS etc., simply carbs and fiber). I would like to know, especially those who critically watch their calorie/carb intake, if you count the fiber content or actually subtract it from carb content. In my diet it would make quite a difference.

A basic exmaple is the staple food of oats - it's 2/3 carbs (66g/100g) so for breakfast I always have 75g oats to get in 50g carbs. Should I in fact be taking in around 90g oats to get the right amount of carbs since its 10-11% fiber in oats? Virtually all my complex carb sources are high in fiber so it really would make quite a difference (brown and wild rice, oats, kasha, oatbran etc.). Should I re-evaluate the diet to subtract fiber content and reconfigure values to get the correct macros? I have been trying to put on weight slowly and another thread got me thinking that this might be one of the barriers (since I would end up with 35-45g less carbs than I thought and that is nearly a third of my carb intake!)

Cheers,
X

Fiber is never counted, ever in life.

~SC~

Once again thanks for the prompt response SC ;)

Would you suggest I recalculate all the values in my diet to get the correct amounts, (since my macros are undeniably quite far out if fiber is subtracted)? Also, I tend to use calorieking and nutritiondata dot com to get values, do you know if the carb counts there include or exclude the fiber already? Reason I ask is since foods like oats show up as the usual 66g/100g carbs and 11g fiber so I would have to calculate it to 55g actual carbs, but things like Kasha are 75g carbs of which 6g is fiber, yet on the databases it sometimes shows up as 75g and sometimes as 69g. That makes it even more confusing :) (for foods which I don't know of course).

Cheers,
X