Quote Originally Posted by Optimistic Nick View Post
Yes, your calculation is right. 2 is your "net carbs" and that is the figure you want to manage. Basically fibre is carbohydrate that you cannot metabolise, so it doesn't count. So yes if a food has 12g of total carbs of which 10g is fibre, then your net carbs are 2g. Fibre is important to the diet actually, as a lot of the roughage in a standard diet comes with the carbs, finding high fibre low carb foods is key.

However - a lot of the guidance on calculating net carbs that you will find on the internet is US-based and is not applicable in the UK. In the US, standard nutrition information shows total carbs (12g), and the 10g of fibre separately. So to get to net carbs in the US you would have to do the calculation you show above. But in the UK, the carbohydrate figure shown in nutritional info is already net of fibre. Fibre is stated separately on the label in the UK, but it has already been deducted from the carbohydrate figure. So in your example, the 12g wouldn't appear anywhere on the label here. It would just show 2g of carbs and separately, 10g of fibre. This does cause a lot of confusion in the UK, as people here follow US guidance and in your example would mentally deduct the 10g of fibre from the 2g of carbs and decide they have -8g of net carbs. That is of course impossible. So for Keto - just follow the carbs figure shown on the label, and track fibre separately to try to get enough. Chia seeds and similar things do help with the fibre.
Cheers, that makes complete sense. I've been on Google and it's an absolute minefield. Depending what you read. I'm either doing everything right or everything wrong! Suppose the answer is to trust yourself and how your body feels. It's working well at the moment, and I haven't got to scientific, that would spin me out and probably put me on the righteous path of Mr Kipling.