Healthy meals include foods that contain carbohydrate, protein, and fat. For people with diabetes, carbohydrate is the most important nutrient to consider in making food choices. If you know how many grams of carbohydrate you are eating, then you'll know where your blood glucose level is headed. This is why planning meals and snacks is so important. Whether you have type 1 or type 2 diabetes, you will work on eating the same amount of carbohydrate, at the same meal, each day.
Carbohydrate is found in starches and sugars.
Keep in mind that sugars may be added to food or naturally present. The Nutrition Facts panel, found on the food label, is the best way to get information on a food's carbohydrate content, but not all foods have labels. You may need to look for other sources of carbohydrate information. But even when you have this information, you still need to weigh or measure the amount of the food you're going to eat, to determine the total grams of carbohydrate in your portion. This list includes foods which are often high in carbohydrate and fat, such as cake, pie, cookies, candy, ice cream, jelly, chocolate, chips and some crackers.