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Eating Out

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This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
J

justlikethehotels

Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Parent of person with diabetes
Hi All

Following Gs Type 1 diagnosis on 12th December, she's getting on well at the moment with her injections and carb counting, which she's doing on her own with supervision. We've had a couple of lowish tests (4.3, 4.6) and she's felt a bit shakey but no actual hypo yet. Thankfully everything seems to be below 10 at the mo so we're obviously getting more right than wrong 🙂

She's had a few "why me" moments, which is heartbreaking. I think the realisation that this is forever is beginning to hit home :( She's putting on a brave face. She even accepted without argument that she couldn't have a glass of full fat coke with her Christmas dinner! I just wish I could take it away and make her better. A diabetes diagnosis must be so difficult for anyone, but as a parent it's so painful to see your child struggling with something and not only not be able to make it better, but not to be able to help at all.

Hey ho, life goes on ... now if I can just get her (like any teenager) to accept that chocolate four times a day isn't OK then I think we'll be alright!

My question today is, as my husband works away and this New Year's Eve is going to be a bit of a washout, I thought I'd take G and her brother out for dinner tomorrow ... but where? I've checked out all the local chains and non seem to have nutritional info relating to carbs on their websites ... any suggestions?

I'm e-mailing companies daily asking them to provide carb info to help make Gs life easier and "normal" when she goes out with friends ... Greggs were particularly helpful and M&S have all the info on their website, but our normal choice for a family meal would be Frankie & Bennys and I can't find anything at all for them.

Any suggestions?

Thanks
 
Hhm, a toughie! I can't help much as when I was on insulin (not at the moment) I had set doses and didn't carb count, however i'm bound to go back on insulin at my next appointment so will keep an eye on this thread for sure and let me know how you get on with the emails you've sent :D

The 'obvious' option would be to guess, but obviously its tricky!! And could go wrong. But if you do, try not to over estimate! Correcting later would probably be a better idea. All in my opinion however...

Hope somebody comes along with a good answer soon xx
 
Eating out is often a case of gestimating what's on your plate..

Never heard of Frankie's & Benny's so don't know what sort of food they serve, you can use the carb knowledge from another company, A meal from MaccyD's is that much different to one from Wimpey etc.. So use this information to estimate the carbs, be a bit cautious with the insulin dose, then keep a close eye on BG's afterwards..

Note it all down, then you find that after several visits you will know that if she has X,Y and Z this will need XX insulin to cover etc..

There is a handy books which I can't think off hand the actual title, but it's gives pictures of a lot of different meals both home and when out, with an indicator of the likely amount of carbs invovled, a verision is also available for phones if I remember rightly..

Gestimating does get easier over time
 
You could use something like Carbs & Cals and guess.

As a Type 2 I'd aim for a meal that was low in carb (a steak) or slow carbs (lasagne usually) but your G might not like those options.

Besides as a Type 1 she can inject where as I'd try for something with a slow profile.

Some restaurants are getting better about printing information up - although it's generally the snacky places like Costa's and Starbucks that have lots of information.
 
I went to an 'all you can eat' restaurant earlier this week; in Birmingham it's called Jimmy Spices; in London Chom Chom?? However, because you select what you want to eat its easier to pick more good food than bad... plenty of stir-fried veg; chicken; noodles/rice etc... I even had a pudding and my numbers were not too bad plus its only once a year...

Hope you enjoy wherever you finally choose... 🙂
 
I have a carb leaflet for Pizza Express. If you let me know what G is likely to eat I can look it up for you. I would private message it to you, but you can't do it just yet.
Pizza Hut have their nutrition online
Weatherspoons have nutrition leaflets in their pubs
McD has their nutrition on the paper in the tray and also on some of the packaging.
We've only been to FrankyandBenny's once and I used the same carb as Pizza Express.
 
I have just sent you a private message. Unfortunately I can't attach the leaflet.
 
LOL - I just Googled it and found the internet is full of people whingeing cos they can't find ANY nutritional info for F & B's !
 
trophywench said:
LOL - I just Googled it and found the internet is full of people whingeing cos they can't find ANY nutritional info for F & B's !
Click to expand...

It makes you wonder if they're scared to tell people what's in their food ! 😱

I would imagine it's very similar to other places of its ilk. 🙂

Rob
 
Just looked at their menu and want to go myself now. 🙄

The Baileys infused chocolate cheesecake sounds a bit naughty. I would imagine after pasta or pizza it would spike somewhere between March and April. 😎

Rob
 
I didn't realise that some companies put details on websites for carbs. thanks for that.

I eat out quite a bit, but if I go to restaurants and not sure about carb count, I'll usually pick a pasta dish using the carbs & cals book/ flash cards as it helps for viewing what your eating and gives an estimation which is better than nothing. As for pizza I've worked carbs out by reading those at supermarkets and use that as an estimate.
 
Well I've eaten at some of em and just guess, same as usual when there's no info.

I mean let's face it, if you read the carbs on McD's containers anything it would scare you so much you'd be frightened to eat it even if you were starving and there was nowt else on offer - which is about when we ever go to McD's. Or if we want to use the internet in France! LOL (Or the loo in Kuala Lumpur.)
 
Thanks for all the replies ... a friend of mine has a Weight Watchers "Eating Out" book ... I'll ask her if that has carbs or just point values.

Of course, you're absolutely right - if we knew what was in everything at restaurants we'd probably never eat out!

I decided to pass this time and save it for her birthday at the end of January - that'll give me a few more weeks to get to grips with it!

Keep those suggestions coming though! It's all good stuff!
 
Why not visit an F & B's in a morning or afternoon, ie when they ain't busy and go and talk to the manager? You can bet your sweet bippy that there is some sort of portion control and if they said it was eg Xg of raw or cooked spaghetti per person, you could make a note. Or eg the raw weight of their X inch pizza base, and look up the equivalent weight of bread? Then it's only toppings and sauces and a lot of em are fat/protein based.

Watch out for fatty (eg cheesy) sauces with pasta though - slows down the carbs one heck of a lot. The spag sauce my husband makes, makes the pasta spike about 5 or 6 hours later!!! Have to have at least 2 if not several small jabs over a number of hours for that on MDI.
 
Well, having said I was going to leave it, today we bit the bullet and ate out for lunch! Thanks to Monica who sent me a nutritional leaflet for Pizza Express the whole thing was fairly painless ... it took a little while to work out what to order and how many carbs that would be, and there was a slight problem with their "Winter" menu not being quite as Monica's leaflet, but thankfully G is very sensible and was happy to change her pudding choice to make it easy ...

I have to say that we went to the one in Eagles Meadow Wrexham and they could not have been more helpful - so I highly recommend them to anyone in the area. When I explained why I was asking about nutritional info, the waiter disappeared and came back a few minutes later saying he'd checked their packaging but no joy and that he'd sent an e-mail to head office asking for the info to be included in their paperwork!

Thanks Monica for the leaflet!
 
In the early days for us we found lots of chains do have nutritional info on their websites. What I found amusing/annoying though was that when out and asking for nutritional information, all they could ever come up with was allergy info! It mad me mad for quite some time. Even if you asked for the manager and explained your child was newly diagnosed with diabetes and you needed to know the carb content they were useless (Harvester & Hungry Horse). It was some time later I found their nutritional info on their websites. To be fair though, do they weigh and measure each portion of chips/potatoes etc as they put them on the plates? No, I'm sure it can't be 100% accurate. It made me want to go back armed with a fistful of sheets and say 'There - look on your own website!' Grrr! I know McDonalds list theirs, and Costas, many chains do, but the staff seem blissfully unaware. You do often have to dig quite deep on websites though to find the information.

I also found it frustrating that in Tescos and the like you get the big colourful nutritional info on the front of pre-packed food telling you how many calories, protein, fat, salt etc, but NO MENTION OF CARBS. Of course if I forgot my specs I was struggling to read the tiny info on the back of packs (yoghurt pots being the worst for tinsy winsy writing) and felt I wanted to target the food police in the Government!!!
 
justlikethehotels said:
Thanks Monica for the leaflet!
Click to expand...

Yo're very welcome!!:D

I'm glad it has worked out well for you. Before we had the leaflet, I actually went to Tesco and looked on their PizzaExpress Pizza for the carb content, as Carol only eats margaritha anyway. I found we were only 10g of carbs out. And with the Tiramisu, we guessed only 10g wrong too. Luckily it never made any difference to her bloods.

Thanks Tina for mentioning Harvester. I'll have to have a look
 
Most restaurant, esp chains of ANY kind including many gastro-pubs and hotels, cook hardly anything from scratch these days. It comes in portion sized packs sealed in plastic/foil and it's cooked on a conveyor belt of hi-tech microwave/steamer, strictly timed so the whole meal for the party of 2 or 8 is ready together.

Yes they do have to individually grill each steak, that's true. But if it says it's a 12oz steak that is exactly what it is.

I have a friend who is a wholesale and retail butcher. I once ordered 120 steaks for the BBQ from him for a club function and that is what I got, I weighed about 30 of em and there was no more than about 8g difference between em.

Every single thing in McD's, KFC, Burger K etc is strictly controlled, even down to the relish dispenser delivering Xg of whatever per push of the handle.

Says she who has both a properly trained chef and also several people who work where they make the actual kitchen equipment for the chains, in her family.
 
Sorry only just seen this

Frankie and Benny's was my daughters fave place to eat prior to Dx (we dont do MacD KFC etc) so not long after she was Dx I started looking for nutritional info online (having found Pizza Hut which was very good) - at the time (about 18 months ago) they told me that they couldn't post details online because it does vary by branch. They told me if I gave them notice and which branch they could let me know. I have never bothered to do this as by thectime we got round to going we had 'Carbs and Cals' and guestimated from that (which is what we do all the time when we eat out now)

We have visited F&B in Dorset and Cornwall and the portions did vary, so I can understand why they do not publish meal contents online.

We do eat out quite a lot on holiday (this country) and I can recommend using the Carbs and Cals app and/or book. We find it is accurate enough and saves looking up each place online ( and if it's not a 'chain' you can't anyway)

Can recommend the Penne Arabiata (if you like spicy) but specify the lunch menu otherwise portion is HUGE.:D
 
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