How to Pick Low Carb Fruits

Whether you are on a low carb diet for weight loss or have diabetes, choosing low carb fruits is easy and healthy.

Things You'll Need

• Farmers market or fruit store

Instructions

Low Carb Fruits

1. 

   First you need to know how much fiber is in fruit because fiber is not digested. So if a food has 20 grams of carbs and 7 grams of fiber, you can subtract the fiber from the carb amount and that will give you net carbs. Net carbs are what you should be counting. In our example the net carbs would be 13 grams. The second important thing to know is that a serving of carbs should equal 15 grams. The food pyramid suggests that an average person eat two to four servings of fruit each day. So that translates into 30 to 60 grams of carbs from fruit, or an average of 45 grams or three servings per day.

2. 

   For our purposes we will consider that those fruits under 10 grams will be low carb, 11-16 will be medium, and 17 grams and up will be high.Low carb fruits - one apricot 3.2, one cup blackberries 6.2, one starfruit 5.6, 10 cherries 9.5, 1/2 white grapefruit 8.6, one kiwi 8.7, one lemon 3.8, one mandarin orange 7.4, one peach 7.8, one plum 6.6, one cup raspberries 6.7, one cup strawberries 9.5, one tangerine is 7.4, one cup watermelon 10.5 Medium carb fruits- one apple 15.8, 1/2 pink grapefruit 11, one cup honeydew 14.1, one nectarine 12, one orange 12.3, one cup papaya 11.2, one pear 15.8, High carb fruits - one banana 23.9, one cup blueberries 17.5, five dates 28.7, two dried figs 20.6, one cup grapes 27.6, one cup mango 25, one cup pineapple 17.6, one cup cooked plantain 44.5, one cup raisons 109.6,

3. 

   Be aware that dried fruits typically have a bit more carbs than raw fresh fruit and canned fruits are sometimes packed in heavy syrup. Some fruits that are sold frozen are sweetened. All these factors can have a dramatic change on the amount of carbs in the fruit. If you're not buying fresh fruit make sure you read the product label for carb information and remember to count the grams of fiber out of the total carb number.

Tips & Warnings

• Be sure to get your doctors OK before making any major changes in your diet.

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish
• Carb Information