Hi again,

I have a question about some cereal I found. Here is the info:

Total carbs: 28
Dietary Fiber 10
Soluble Fiber 1
Insoluble Fiber 9

I know u can subtract the Dietary Fiber from the total carbs. What about the other fiber? Can you subtract soluble and insoluble fiber?

Thanks,
DD

Hi DD.

You would subtract both the soluble and the insoluble fiber - neither is digestible by humans. Soluble fiber is that kind which slows digestion of food and insoluble is fiber that passes right through the intestines and adds bulk to stool. Both aid in digestion, keeping you regular and aid in preventing disease.

HTH
-Nat

Ok, I have one more question....Does the soluble and insoluble make up the total dietary fiber? In other words does this cereal have 18 carbs or 8? I hope it's 8. lol..That'd be a good breakfast item. I just found them in stores. It's called "Kashi" This kind I have is called "GoLean" but I found Puffed Kashi that only had 11 carbs for a whole cup. I couldn't find this in the stores today tho. I appreciate the help, I'm new to low carb so I'm just gettin used to all this.

Thanks again,
DD

Your cereal has 10g of fiber, you add the soluble and the insoluble, assuming both are listed (normally just 'fiber' is listed).

A word of warning, though. Often the fiber has been pre-subtracted, meaning that the cereal has 38g of carbs of which 10g are fiber and 28g are 'effective carbs'. You can double check if this is the case by doing a little math. 1g of carbohydrate has 4 calories (as does 1g of protein). 1g of fat has 9 calories. All the grams of protein and carbs mutiplied by 4 plus all the fat grams x 9 should equal the same amount of calories as a serving. If there is a discrepancy it's usually because your fiber was pre-subtracted.

There is also a little tool under "LC Tools" up atop every page called the Hidden Carb Inspector you can use to do this.

HTH,
-Nat

I concur. As a general rule, if a food is "high fiber" ie, more than 5g fiber per serving, it's very likely that the manufacturer will presubtract fiber grams before calculating the calories in the food. Many manufacturers are doing this in order to be more accurate, since fiber does not contribute any caloric energy.


Doreen