Low-Carb Food Grade: Helping You Find Healthy Low-Carb Foods

Sue Heikkinen, MS, RDN, CDCES, BC-ADM, ACE-PT - Registered Dietitian Nutritionist and Certified Diabetes Care and Education Specialist

Need help finding healthy low-carb foods? MyNetDiary's Low-Carb Food Grade can help you plan and evaluate your low-carb diet.

What is the Low-Carb Food Grade, and how can it help me find healthy low-carb foods?

Our Low-Carb Food Grade is a tool to help you choose the best low-carb foods. The Low-Carb food grade is a version of our original food grade.

The Low-Carb Food Grade assigns foods a letter grade:

A - Best foods
B - Good choices
C - Ok in moderation
D - Limit

Here is an example of Low-Carb Food Grade displayed for two food entries:

How we came up with the Low-Carb Food Grade

A team of Registered Dietitians reviewed hundreds of foods in terms of their nutrition value and appropriateness for a low-carb diet. The dietitians rated the foods on a scale of 0-10, with 10 being the best healthy low-carb foods. A mathematical formula was developed based on these food ratings and the nutrition profile of the foods. This formula calculates the Low-Carb Food Grade for every food a user enters.

Negative factors: Carbohydrates, trans fat, saturated fat
Positive factors: Dietary fiber, protein, unsaturated fat

Limitations of the Low-Carb Food Grade

• Foods with similar grades may have important nutrition differences not measured by the Low-Carb Food Grade.
• The Low-Carb Food Grade may not emphasize your individual nutrition goals. For example, sodium is not a large factor in the Low-Carb Food Grade, but might be important to for you to limit.
• The formula is only based on nutrition information available on the Nutrition Facts label.

Tips for using the Low-Carb Food Grade

• Focus on your overall choices. Don't get discouraged if you eat a few foods with low ratings.
• Carbohydrates have the largest effect on the Low-Carb Food Grade. Even though a high-carbohydrate food may be healthy by other standards, it may have a lower grade due to the carbohydrate content.
• Portions still matter, even for highly rated foods.
• You can hide the Low-Carb Food Grade from appearing on food labels and meal reports if you do not find it helpful. Go to Plan/Nutrient Targets for web and Android apps, or to Food Entry Setting in the iPhone app (open a meal then tap the 3-dot icon at the top right of the screen, then tap Settings).

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