Garbage In = Garbage Out. GIGO.
As used in a newsletter from my friend Gary Scheiner’s practice, it applies to being able to accurately count carb grams.
If you calculate the wrong number of carbs, your blood sugar will not be where you want it to be later. Garbage In (inaccurate carb grams) = Garbage Out (high or low blood sugar later).
I do understand that accurate carb counting is a very important piece of my diabetes management. I was trying to calculate the carb grams for some baked pita chips (don’t fall over, yes, I do realize they are somewhat healthy… more so than Doritos anyway).
The nutrition label said “Serving Size 1 oz (28g/about 14 chips)”
Because I don’t have a food scale built into my hand (I have a food scale at home, and use it often. However I was at work – no food scale available (add that to my list of “stuff to buy”)), I find myself looking at stuff like this often:
I figure that counting the chips should not be that bad, and I really want my BG to land right back on target in a few hours, so I dig into the bag.
And quickly run into a problem. These are not Pringles…
The chips are all different shapes and sizes. Many are all busted apart in the bag. Some are HUGE. Others are tiny fragments left over after some sort of pita chip brawl. Or maybe they were assaulted from the outside by some big bully of a heavier grocery…
I did the best I could do with what I had, and really, can I ask any more of myself than that? I don’t think so. But it is still a bit frustrating when I was really working hard at making sure my carb count was not garbage. It’s so approximate anyway – is it really worth the work?
What I can do in the future is either get another food scale for work, which might make sense because I do just about as much eating there as I do at home. Another option is to bring the chips home and split them into portions using the scale, and bring them back in baggies or something.
Damn. It’s a lot of work to eat with diabetes.
