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Eating out......any ideas?

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J

jaysee10

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Parent of person with diabetes
Hi everyone
I have a young daughter who was recently diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. When eating out does anyone have any ideas on how to estimate carbs as most places are unlikely to detail carbohydrates but some may note calories. Any information would be greatly appreciated.
 
I'm not a Type 1, but as a Type 2 controlled purely by a Low Carb way of eating, I look at the restaurant's web site for online menu so that I can decide which restaurant to go to and which meal to order. Many restaurants include total Carbs on their online menus.
 
Chain restaurants often have carb info on the website if you search hard (sometimes it takes a while to find the right page) otherwise we tend to use carbs and cals as they show portion sizes and we guesstimate. I generally expect that we’ll have to correct later one way or another but I’m getting better at getting close.
If you don’t know how big portions will be you could split the insulin and do a lower dose before it comes and add more insulin once you see the portion size but my daughter would object to yet another injection so we tend not to do that.
 
I would recommend ‘Carbs and Cals’ which is available as a book or app (and has a new edition for ‘World Foods’)

It is full of hundreds of photos of different portion sizes of different carbs and can really help you begin to estimate by eye.

Its a skill she will develop by experience over the coming weeks/years. She will be able to guesstimate a restaurant meal or takeaway sandwich lunch in no time 🙂
 
I agree Carbs and Cals is brilliant, I don't know how we would have managed without it in the first year!

Also I would suggest not doing the insulin dose until the food arrives, partly in case it takes longer than expected to arrive, but also so that you can see the portion size and take a guess at how much she will eat.
 
Thank you all for those helpful suggestions and tips, it is much appreciated
 
The carbs and cals app is really handy
 
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This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
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