How to Calculate Carbohydrates & Fiber

Although they've gained a bad reputation over the past several years thanks to low-carb fad diets, carbohydrates are an essential component of human nutrition, providing glucose to the brain and body. Dietary fiber is an indigestible component of carbohydrates you can find in many fruits, vegetables and grains, which helps your body excrete solid waste. Although nutrition fact labels will provide you general guidelines on how much of each of these nutrients you need, it is possible to calculate this value more specifically.

Instructions

1

Calculate your suggested daily amount of carbohydrates in calories, based on your total caloric intake. Health.gov suggests that between 45 and 65 percent of your day's calories should come from carbs. If you consume 2,000 calories per day, do this as follows: 2,000 x .45 = 900; 2000 x .65 = 1300. In this instance, between 900 and 1,300 of your daily calories would need to come from carbohydrates.

2

Determine the amount of grams of carbohydrates you need. Nutrition facts labels list carbohydrates in grams, not calories, so that caloric value will be worthless to you. Keeping in mind that four calories of carbohydrates is equal to one gram, calculate this as follows for the example range of carbohydrate consumption: 900/4 = 225; 1300/4 = 325. If you consume 2,000 calories per day, you need to consume between 225g and 325g of carbohydrates per day.

3

Calculate the amount of fiber you need. You need to consume 14g of fiber per 1,000 calories per day. If you consume 2,000 calories per day, you would therefore need 28g of fiber per day.