Dana Carpender's Carb Gram Counter: Usable Carbs, Protein, Fat, and Calories - Plus Tips on Eating Low-Carb! (Paperback)

by Dana Carpender (Author)
Key Phrases: specific entrées, avg size, crème filling, Lean Cuisine, Hot Dog, Healthy Choice (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Hello, low-carb dieters! Need some help? In this book you'll find a comprehensive directory of the total carbs, usable carbs, fiber, protein, and calorie amounts for countless different types of food. To make it easy to use, we've highlighted the usable carbs, so you can find the most vital information at a glance. And to help you put more variety in your diet, we've also highlighted the foods with less than five grams of usable carbs per serving, so you can see what you may have been missing!

To help you maintain a low-carb diet happily and successsfully for life, we've included the best low-carb tips. We've even put together lists of great low-carb snacks, low-carb treats, fast food meals, and more!

So grab this little book, and carry it in your pocket, purse, or briefcase - it's the low-carb tool you've been looking for!

About the Author
Dana Carpender is a nationally syndicated columnist, appears frequently on national radio and television, and publihses Lowcarbezine!, the popular internet newsletter. She lives in Bloomington, Indiana, and has been eating a low-carb diet for the past nine years, with nothing but great health to show for it.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Fair Winds Press; Rev Upd edition (October 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592331440
• ISBN-13: 978-1592331444
• Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #118,857 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #20 in	Books > Health, Mind & Body > Diets & Weight Loss > Special Conditions > High Protein Diet
  #51 in	Books > Health, Mind & Body > Diets & Weight Loss > Food Counters

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best Carb Counter I've found yet!, January 11, 2004

By	Kelly Olexa "Kelly Olexa" (Carpentersville, IL) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Dana Carpender's Carb Gram Counter: Usable Carbs, Protein, and Calories - Plus Tips on Eating Low-Carb (Paperback)

If you are on any type of Lo-carb plan, you've got to get this book. Perfect small size but far more thorough than anything. She has even added the fast food menu items made lo-carb; for example if you order a sandwich at Wendy's and remove the ketchup and bread, how many calories, fat grams and carbs are left...this is fantastic for those of us that still like to know or have an idea on general calories we are consuming. I have the small carb counter that came w/the new Atkins book and that's fine, but this will replace it and stay in my purse. Highly recommend this!

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars inconsistent reporting makes values hard to compare, April 15, 2004

By	"songsrus" (Champaign, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dana Carpender's Carb Gram Counter: Usable Carbs, Protein, and Calories - Plus Tips on Eating Low-Carb (Paperback)

I have Carpender's 500 Low Carb Recipes, and 15 minute Low Carb recipes, like those books a lot and use them often. Finding those books to be an inspiration to my own low carb creativity, I bought this book to help me determine the carb values of my own recipes, in which I use a lot of the same ingredients Carpender uses but in varying mixtures. I particularly thought that the entries in her own carb counter book would harmonize well with the types of ingredients she often uses, such as varieties of nuts substituted for flour. I also hoped to find extensive information on vegetables, since they are the key variable factors in low carb counting.

This book doesn't well match some of the key ingredients in her own recipes, however. 1 oz., 1/2 cup, 1 small, medium, raw, roasted/salted, cooked, whole, ground, --- the entries are not wide enough to match up to many of the common forms of ingredients used in low carb home cooking. Just when I wanted to know the carb count of some raw veggie, all that could be found was some amount or form that didn't at all match with what I had available. (One of the funniest entries is for potatoes, which I rarely use whole, using mostly only the skins--not listed--but notice: there is info for a whole pound, for hash browns, for homemade potato salad [what recipe was that anyway?], but no value for a 3 oz. plain whole potato.)

I don't need to know the info for prepackaged items, since in the United States, that is readily and more easily found on the package. And I don't eat often in restaurants.

I am still looking for a good carb counter for home cooking. So far I find the Eades (Protein Power authors), The Protein Power Lifeplan Gram Counter to be superior to this book. In addition to carb counts the Eads book lists Omega 6 & 3 values, and has special, easily found, pages on particularly desirable foods (such as high vitamin C, magnesium, E, and biggest bang for the buck foods), whereas Carpender either doesn't mention things like vitamins, and disperses the lowest carb foods throughout the whole book, burying them in each entry. This is a matter of preference, but I find Carpender's information just to hard to find, especially in the moment when I am standing in the kitchen wondering about a particular substitute for a recipe I am poised to make right then.

Carpender seems like a nice gal, and certainly has lots of spunk, but I feel that this book may have been written too hastily at best. I'm sorry I bought it, though it is pretty funny in places, but not where I think it is supposed to entertain.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars She's a great low-carb writer but..., February 3, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Dana Carpender's Carb Gram Counter: Usable Carbs, Protein, and Calories - Plus Tips on Eating Low-Carb (Paperback)

I simply love Dana's "How I gave up my low-fat diet" book, her e-newsletter and her low carb cookbooks so when I saw this book, I bought it immediately, but now I wish I had thumbed through it first. The organization (or lack there of) makes it very difficult to use. There is no index, the table of contents is the only way to locate foods and that isn't set up in any sensical way. I am always frustrated while trying to find things. The small size is convenient for eating out, if you can find what you are looking for, and the information is complete and includes usable carbs, which my atkins book does not.