July 27, 2005
Meal Planning, Food and Diet
Question from Metuchen, New Jersey, USA:
I do a lot of cooking and baking from scratch. Many recipes do not include carbohydrate counts. I usually figure out the carbohydrate count for the individual ingredients, total that number and divide by the number of servings. Does heating the food or baking the item affect the carbohydrate count? Also, is there a computer software program that would calculate this for you?
Answer:
Overall, the carbohydrate content does not change that significantly due to the baking or heating of it. Although some people see a higher rise in blood glucose after cooking pasta al dente as opposed to “an overcooked” state, this is probably due to the fact that as pasta and rice cook longer, more water is absorbed into it and the starch content is broken down. Most cookbooks nowadays will have the nutrition content (i.e. carbohydrates) calculated per serving size.
JMS
[Editor’s comment: See www.recipecalc.com for a computer program to perform nutrition analysis.
BH]
