bread units

Bread Units table

A bread unit stands for 12 grams of carbs, But what is the amount of wholegrain bread, potatoes and the like? The answers to this can be found in the following bread units table. It indicates for various foods, which portion size / amount of a food of a bread unit correspond. So take about half a slice (about 30 grams) of wholemeal bread 1 BE to him. So, using this bread units list, you can quickly compare different foods for their carbohydrate content and swap them. If you are not in the mood for wholemeal bread, you can eat two slices (20 grams) of crispbread instead of half a slice of bread.

This diabetic food list provides guidance when it comes to adjusting nutrition and insulin therapy. Thus, over- and hypoglycaemia can be prevented.

Depending on the composition of the food, the bread units can vary – especially in finished products. For packaged foods, you can use the labeled carbohydrate portion to calculate the bread units. This works as follows:

For example, if the pack says that there are 45 grams of carbohydrates in 100 grams of chocolate, divide 45 by 12. The result 3.75 equals the BEs contained in 100 grams of chocolate. With time and experience, diabetics who pay close attention to their diets develop a sense of how many bread units in a food are roughly contained.

By the way:Nowadays, the amount of carbohydrate contained in a food is usually given in carbohydrate units (KHE or KE) rather than bread units. 1 KHE corresponds to 10 grams of carbohydrates.

From bread units to insulin units

The body needs a certain amount of energy per day. It essentially consists of basal metabolism and power sales Together: The basal metabolic rate corresponds to the amount of energy that the body needs to maintain all life functions at rest. For physical activities (work, exercise, etc.) he needs an additional amount of energy: it corresponds to the power turnover.

In individual cases, the hangs Total daily requirement of energy of several factors. These include age, gender, height and weight, and physical activity. For example, people in the 65+ age group who are less physically active need about 1,700 kilocalories (women) or 2,100 kilocalories (men) per day. The different energy needs of the sexes can be explained by the fact that men have a higher basal metabolic rate than women due to their generally higher muscle content.

Much of your daily energy needs should be covered by consuming carbohydrates (the rest via egg whites and fats). For insulin-dependent diabetics this means: you should / may a certain amount of bread units per day to eat, distributed over several small meals. How much this is in a particular case, patients learn from their doctor or nutritionist.

Based on the amount of bread units containing a planned meal, patients can then estimate the insulin units they need to inject. So the expected blood sugar increase can be “intercepted” after the meal. The following applies: 1 BE raises the blood sugar level by about 40 mg / dl. An insulin unit lowers it by about 40 mg / dl. Accordingly, you need 1 insulin unit to neutralize the effect of 1 Bread Unit on the blood sugar.

Bread units: sample menu

Here is an example of how the bread units can be distributed to the meals of a day. This menu refers to a woman about 1.65 m tall, the 20 bread units per day.