Reading labels

I've been a label reader for years. It's a habit my husband got me into. We avoid high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and pretty much added sugar in anything that doesn't need it - potato chips, pasta sauce, etc. If you don't read labels, you'd be surprised how many processed foods have unnecessary sugar or HFCS. I also avoid partially hydrogenated anything and pretty much any ingredients that don't sound like food - like mono- and diglycerides.

With gestational diabetes, I'm still reading labels, but now I'm checking carb content, not just sugar. For example, the whole wheat bread I was eating when I started the diet had 21 g of carbs in one slice. Switching to a different whole grain bread by the same company (Milton's one of the few that doesn't put HFCS or partially hydrogenated oils in their wheat bread) that has only 16 g of carbs has helped keep my post-breakfast glucose readings down.

I had looked for "light" bread which I heard would allow me to have 2 slices for 15 g of carbs. I found one brand at Vons. Part of the solution is that their slices are very small. But I decided against getting the "light" bread because of the mono- and diglycerides in it along with some other ingredients I questioned. I'd rather stick with a single slice of bread with natural ingredients.

Even before this diet, I was buying graham crackers for my son from the health food store rather than getting the standard Honey Maid. These are the graham crackers I've been eating, too. They have 21 g of carbs in 2 full sheets, so I eat 1 1/2 sheets for my (approximately) 15 g of carbs. 2 sheets have 6 g of sugar. There is no HFCS or any saturated fat in them. They are also organic, but that isn't strictly important to me - it's just that organic labels tend to use better ingredients. I later started getting the cinnamon graham crackers when I discovered they had no more sugar or carbs than the regular ones.

I just looked up the nutritional content of Honey Maid cinammon graham crackers. In contrast to the ones I get, they have 25 g of carbs in 2 sheets and 10 g of sugar (that is 2 g more than their regular honey graham crackers). They have HFCS plus saturated fat from partially hydrogenated oils.

By reading labels on cookies at Trader Joe's I found some mini biscotti's that allow me 2 for an afternoon snack with another carb and some protein. There are some cookies that have 15 g of carbs in a single cookie, or in 2 much smaller cookies. By reading labels and not just getting my favorite cookies, I'm able to have more cookie for the amount of carbs so I still feel full after my snack, but my blood sugar doesn't skyrocket.