Why eating out with Diabetes is so hard

In the years since my diagnosis it has been quite difficult to eat out. Knowing what you safely eat due to lack of labelling and also knowing what a restaurant is putting into their dishes has been nightmare.

First and foremost I always recommend speaking to your server and asking them to inquire with the kitchen if a food could be a challenge for your diabetes. I learnt the hard way that a lot of Indian takeaways as sugar to curries and not the ones you may initially think of like a korma which is typically sweet. I ordered a Butter Chicken curry and had a spike in blood sugar which caused the usual head aches and fatigue.

I checked with the takeaway and confirmed they add sugar to the curries to improve the flavour, I asked for the same curry without sugar explaining my situation. They kindly complied, hence my first point always speak to the kitchen and explain the situation. However in this instance the sugar really adds to the flavour and it was nowhere near as nice, this leads me to my second point. I now order a Madras as they don’t add sugar to that one, so be prepared to find a vast difference in the taste of your dishes. Sugars tastes too damn nice for sure!

Food Upfront Campaign

You may recall recently that after a heavy amount of campaigning that clearer labels on food detailing their nutrition values became mandatory. This led to the large takeaways likes McDonalds and the like updating their menus with calorie information.

Whilst this is great it is the bare minimum needed to help tackle the Obesity crisis happening around the world. For us Diabetics the calorie intake is not the information we need, its the Carb, Sugar and Salt that we need.

You can join the campaign at Diabetes UK and learn more about progress made to date in trying to increase awareness of the lack of information available to us.

https://www.diabetes.org.uk/get_involved/campaigning/food-upfront-campaign

Are there any good restaurants out there?

Alas there are still no obvious choices here for us, its more important to take a look at the menu and try to find the one or two dishes that would work for us. If unlike me you like a good salad then its much easier eating broccoli on the side or a buttered lettuce. This causes me to cringe so I look for places that serve plenty of meat with the option of extra meat on the side.

There was a Keto Restaurant in London but it closed now… I had the good fortune of going there and the cheesecake was amazing, so rich and tasty but that doesn’t help us here.

I love Turkish food and you can overdose on kebab just be careful of the sauces, the Turkish bread is amazing but we cannot partake. Nando’s is a great option as the side of Halloumi is a nice touch.