Carbohydrate Calculations

The kids were invited to one of our neighbor's birthday party on Saturday. The math that ensued in an attempt to get the most accurate carbohydrate content in each of the cupcakes was so confusing I still don't know if I got it right, but the figure in the end looked believable, so if there are any math whizzes out there don't criticize me too much! It was the best I could do under pressure.

Prepare for a boring post. I'm sure this is only interesting to me.

I asked the host where she bought them and she told me and gave me their phone number.

I called the Dessert Tray, a small little bakery in town, and was met with confusion. I seem to get that whenever I call to ask if they know how many carbohydrates are in their things. If the information is not already in Calorie King online, then we need to figure it out on our own.

They wouldn't give me a recipe (understandably), so I asked for only the amounts of the ingredients which are converted to sugar in the body. The only amounts they made were large because they make cupcakes in large volumes. So here's what I got:

7 lbs of sugar

6 lbs of flour

1 quart of milk

1 pint of sour cream

Eggs, baking powder and soda, butter, oil and shortening are not carbs so I didn't need those amounts.

First I converted the pounds, quarts, and pints to ounces:

7lbs x 16 oz = 112 oz of sugar

6lbs x 16 oz = 96 oz of flour

1 qt = 4 pints = 8 cups = 32 oz of milk

1 pint = 1 cup = 8 oz sour cream

Then I looked on Calorie King for the conversion of oz of ingredient to grams of carbohydrate:

112 oz = 3175 grams sugar

96 oz = 2076.6 grams flour

32 oz = 50 grams milk

8 oz = 10 grams sour cream

Next I added up the total grams:

3175+2077+50+10 = 5412 oz of ingredients containing carbs in this batter of cake mix.

Then I took that number and divided by the number they gave me (26 lbs) of the weight of the batter. But I soon realized that didn't help me because what I needed was the amount of cupcakes it made. So I called them back and after conferring with the chef or baker or whatever they are called, they guessed that the whole thing probably contains enough batter to make 80 cupcakes. THAT was a number I could work with!

So 5412 oz divided by 80 cupcakes = 67 grams of carbohydrate per cupcake!!

Now that that was done, I looked at the clock and saw that the eating of the cupcakes would align quite nicely with snack time (3 pm). So I allowed for 1 carbohydrate exchange that Kaiah would normally get (15 grams) and subtracted the rest. 67-15 = 52. This number would need to be supplemented with extra insulin. The endocrinologists have determined that she needs 0.5 units of novolog insulin per 25 grams of carbohydrate that goes above her normal consumption. So that meant (and I just estimated) that she should get 1 extra unit. BUT we have discovered over the last few months whenever we try to estimate like this it always ends up to be about 1/2 unit short and her sugar a few hours later ends up to be too high. So we have been adding an extra 0.5 unit to the syringe for good measure :)

I tested her sugar, gave her the 1.5 unit shot of insulin, gave her the cupcake and hoped for the best...

She loved it (of course) and 2 hours later her blood sugar was 101! Normal is 60-120 in normal people and they are happy with 70-180 for Kaiah.

I was excited that my mad math calculations (whether or not they were accurate) worked... this time!

And I had a flashback to all the painful work I went through in 4th grade... frequently asking my dad and mom, "When will I ever need to know this stuff?"

I guess last Saturday I got my answer.