These are photos of food I’ve eaten, shared for the benefit of anyone pursuing a low carb diet. This reduced carbohydrate way of eating has worked for me to manage my type 2 diabetes. Bookmark this page at Complaining About Food, because I’ll keep adding photos, and also consolidate other posts on this site that feature food photos.

Meal of Refried Beans, Salmon, Mixed Vegetable, Cabbage 2020/6/3

Quantities: 65g refried beans, 29g salmon, 65g mixed vegetables, 72g steamed cabbage. Afterward, I ate 1oz of peanuts.

This is not what I consider a “low carb” meal, but it’s not too bad. Total carbs are 25g; the beans have 14g of carbs, which is the largest contribution to the carb total. The mixed veggies are also a bit high at 7+g. These are considered forbidden foods, especially these mixed vegetables.

I didn’t meter myself, but something like this will usually raise my blood glucose 20 points or more.

Pictures of Food, Pork, Chicken, Mushrooms, Cabbage, Mustard Greens, Chili – 2019/8/19

This is a meal with a little too much meat. 100g chicken, 66g pork, 93g cabbage, 66g mushrooms, 27g anaheim chili. Grand total around 10 g of carbs, 40g protein, and 300 calories.

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Pictures of Food with Weights in Grams 2019/5/7

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My food tracker has a good database, but I have to tell it how much I’m eating, and that’s not always easy. For me, remembering the weight of a pre-measured amount of that food is the easiest method.

All my measurements are in grams.

Pictures of Dim Sum

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Pictures of Corned Beef and Cabbage

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Vegetables are heavier than meats. The meats contain fats, which weigh less than water. The proteins may weigh more, but some pieces of meat float, while others sink.

Vegetables typically sink in water.

I’m thinking of standardizing serving sizes, so I’d photograph 100g of meat, and 150g of vegetables. My typical meal breakdown right now is around 300g of veggies and carbs, and 100g of meat. I really need to break out the carbs, and photograph what 5, 10, and 15 grams of carbs look like.

Pictures of Food With Weights 2019/9/21

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100g onion
63g pork chop
35g broccoli
58g cabbage
47g bell pepper

I didn’t count the soup, but it’s around 100g of vegetables and some miso. Probably 10g carbs, but it’s not in the calculations below.

I added 1T of oil to the calculations, because some of the vegetables picked up some from the pork.

Total calories: 336kcal

Protein: 20g (23%), Carbs: 19g (21%), Fat: 21g (56%) (from happyforks.com)

It was kind of low in calories so I had a chocolate flax shake. That adds around 200 calories, a hit of 3g of carbs, a slug of fat, and boosts my omega 3.

(I ate this meal twice today, but with a little less carbs and more meat.) I had an orange creamsicle drink, which is basically 1T of cream, and a lemon cream drink which is half a lemon and 1T of cream. That probably got me into the 1200 kcal range.

This isn’t 100% on target with LCHF, because the quantity of onion is kind of high. Onion is full of sugars, and that’s why the carbs were nearly 20g with this one meal.

Starting BG was 99 mg/dl. I failed to eat to the meter, missing the first hour metering. So I just went and did measurements with expireds. First metering was 131 & 143, second was at 2:42 later and 165 & 155. Estimated measurement was 120. (Based on similar measurements of 153 and 151.)

My best guess is that the shake and meat and fiber slowed the carbs from getting into my blood. It was a pretty carb-heavy meal for LCHF.

Pictures of Food with Weights in Grams 2019/9/23

I’m posting collections of photos of food with their measured weights, as a way to help learn to visually estimate the weight of foods, in grams. This set is from my “archives” of incomplete posts.

All the foods are considered okay for keto or Low-Carb High-Fat diabetic diets.

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 172g gai lan
 110g beef (I ate more than one patty)
 50g pickles (I didn't eat all of that)

 323g

 280kcal

 Protein: 35g (50%)
 Fat: 10g     (34%)
 Carb: 12.2g  (16%)
 
 Omega 6:3 Ratio: 7:1

 I then added 2T of ground flaxseed to water and a little
 cocoa and drank that.  This altered the numbers significantly:

 390kcal (added 110kcal)
 Fat: 19g (almost doubled it)
 Carbs: 18g (added 6g)
 Omega 6:3 Ratio: 1:2

Ground flaxseed boosts the amount of omega 3 fatty acids. In this case, it added so much that the omega-3 exceeds the omega-6 fats.

Ground flaxseed is basically a high-fat, somewhat high carb, seed.

It adds signficant energy, fiber, and healthy fats to food. It’s also roughage, and helps with better stool formation, both softening hard stool, and firming up loose stool.

An all leftovers lunch. The plastic trays weigh around 30g, so I subtract 30. Missing is a photo of kale.

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25g kale
155g salad leftovers
95g salad
125g chicken with bone
68g chicken no bone
71g chorizo Salvadorean style
1T ground flaxseed

Totals, roughly, from happyforks:
856 kcal
 protein: 75g
 fat: 56g
 carbs: 11g
 Omega 6:3 ratio: 2:1

Overall, good ratios, very low in carbs, but a lot of food. Over half a kilo. I’m going to need to work this off.

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I wasn’t sure how to break down the ingredients, so I did a rough estimate:

two 53g hamburger patty
82g broccoli
150g daikon
20g carrot
20g onion
20g shiitake mushroom
20g mung bean sprouts
20g celery
20g cabbage
10g carrot
1 boiled egg
1 tablespoon oil

The results.

Around 500g of food, or half a kilo. I could have run it a little bit lower.

20g of carbs. That’s half my budget. 17% of calories from carbs, estimated.

Omega 6:3 ratio was 5. That’s too high, but not horrible. 26g of fat, and 8.5g was saturated, with 216mg of cholesterol. So, it was high in fat. My triglycerides and cholesterol were high at the last test, so I need to slow down on the meats.

I failed to add ground flaxseed, a new food to me, which I’m starting to use. The stuff is interesting. It has a 1:4 Omega 6:3 ratio. It’s super-high in fiber, being a seed. It tastes like a mild nut, and when mixed with water, gels up.