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THE SAD CAFE,s

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O

OFFFAY

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
one of the most daunting realities of my condition was discovering that the amount of
café,s and restaurants who cater for low carb are /////////// well nil
I find this strange because there are 3.9 million of us and its rising
ha ha is someone missing out here ?
its so frustrating going into a nice café on a lovely day and having a mental battle to
to avoid that tempting slice of carrot cake , still I've slowly got used to roast dinner
without the spuds and steak without the chips Hey I love veg and spinach and lentils
but !!!!!!
MAYBE we are to invisible ?
 
You have to be a certain age for the title of this thread to mean something to you Offfay. 🙂

I couldn't agree more. There was a promising sighting recently on the sandwich front...an omelette wrap for low carbers in Tesco. It's fortunate that the less carbs you eat the less you crave them...or we'd all be up the creek sans paddle. :(
 
When l was stuck down at A&E with my wife at the weekend, i was starving. The hospital shop had nothing l could eat. It was a total carb fest. I ended up having a Natural cereal bar at 18g carbs.
 
That is possibly because low carbing is not classed as main stream advise. Though I have found sometimes if you ask some cafes can be accommodating!
 
Most cafes I know serve low carb items such as fried breakfasts and salads. Or are willing to adapt existing itmes such as serving just filling or filling on one slice of bread instead of a full sandwich. Always worth asking. If people don't ask, then the cafes won't know that there's a demand. For example, last week I walked part of Cleveland Way, and to celebrate at Filey, we went for fish and chips. We asked at two shops before finding one that served gluten free battered fish (my friend has coeliac disease). The first shop directed us to another that didn't serve gluten free, but the second was accurate in its recommendation and the third served what he needed.
 
Im really lucky near where I work as there are 2 really good cafes. The one we use for breakfast occasionally does the usual full english brekkies and will always substitute items for you. they even give me extra egg now instead of toast/bread. And the one we use for lunch does a great range of salads and roast veggies with rotisserie chicken.
 
I know that Diabetes UK is an information/campaigning/researching organisation but, just like Oxfam did with its shops, it could open a series of cafés which could cater for D's as well as non-D's.
 
Well, I work on the principle that if I have that nice slice of carrot cake in the cafe, I won't have any new potatoes with my evening meal. But, because my memory is shot to hell, by the evening I have forgotten about the cake that I'd had earlier. Problem solved! 🙂
 
I have recently found that Bill's is doing meals with courgetti spaghetti and cauliflower rice. A good start.
I also now always ask what the carbs are in any food I order. My local cafe found out for me (not a chain) and ipothers might respond if we all keep asking. I usually opt for a salad and ask for dressing on the side and some swaps.
 
If we're out and need to eat, all we can do is make the best options from what's available.

My OH is a former restaurateur (owner, not cook, although he is an excellent cook), who was horrified on my diagnosis for how it would impact on how we ate. Of course there have been changes, but in reality, most things are tweaks, rather than massive changes - reducing sauces instead of thickeners etc.

At the outset, I resolved never, ever to ask anywhere if there were low carb alternatives. To me, that's my issue to deal with, not the host/restaurateur/cook's. The most I ever do is ask for salad rather than spuds, say, and the most comment I've had is something like, surely you're not dieting. If comment is made, I just comment that I can't eat bread/potatoes/party or whatever. I'm never asked why. In fact, most times any response to that is, "yes, there seem to be lots of folks not eating these, these days".

More often than not, I can can happily choose something straight from the menu and be happy.

I do think more and more places are "getting with the programme" these days. I was in M&S Food Hall the other day, and decided to have a bit of a trawl around. They now have loads of stuff we can happily chow down on. I even noticed there are a couple of low carb (and noted as low carb) items on their Cafe menu.

I do agree that some places we could reasonably expect to have a few choices (like hospitals), are about the worst. I have got quite good at ensuring I have something in my handbag, like a small pack of salted peanuts, should I be seriously caught out.
 
I like the M&S cocktail sausages. At 6.8g a pack (10) not too bad & very filling.
 
I find that breakfasts are a good bet, failing that buffets.... I may even resort to Salads.... But very true, nobody appears to cater Low Carb specifically (even if it's just the odd option on the menu). There is way more emphasis on Low Fat.
 
To be fair to those providing food; one man's low carb is another's carb-fest, never mind throwing in vegetarian, then all those other variants we find.

OK, when we're out it's not always possible (if we're trying be eat low carb) to choose from the whole menu, without going off-piste, or accepting our levels are likely to be higher than we'd prefer to see, but the vendor, whether shopkeeper, restaurateur, buyer or whatever is often working to a price point, may be working to a theme and vitally important to them, looking to make a profit.

Where going to someone's house to eat is concerned, the same applies. I could never ask anyone to modify what they cook, because I can't eat part of it. To be fair, if I am going to someone's house for the first time, I never allow myself to go ravenous, so that if the food isn't ideal for me, I needn't have a massive portion, which could just help me out.
 
While I note the comments about not mentioning low carb/food choices when visiting someone's house for a meal, I have to speak up because of the allergies, they're dangerous to me otherwise - it would really ruin a dinner party if I got hauled off to the hostilepile with anaphylactic shock cos something had egg or fish in it. I rarely speak up about the carbs though, I feel it's one condition too far and I just eat round whatever carb is supplied, or maybe have a little of it. I can usually find something edible in local caffs and restaurants (this is soup country and there's usually at least one on the menu that's low carb). My local chippie has even started doing sweet potato wedges that are really, really good, they also have a lot of salads. Not that I go there too often because then you get into the whole fried foods thing.

To be brutally honest, I'm not quite as much a low carb fanatic as I used to before MDI, now I can adjust my insulin to suit what I eat. I still keep a fairly low carb load but I'm less likely to panic if I'm out somewhere and can't find something suitable on the menu, I just have what I fancy and up the Novorapid to cover it. I do feel really leaden and lethargic if I have a carb heavy meal though, my body isn't used to it any more.
 
AndBreathe said:
Where going to someone's house to eat is concerned, the same applies. I could never ask anyone to modify what they cook, because I can't eat part of it. To be fair, if I am going to someone's house for the first time, I never allow myself to go ravenous, so that if the food isn't ideal for me, I needn't have a massive portion, which could just help me out.
Click to expand...

Like you I would never ask someone to adjust what they provide when we go round to someone else's for a meal. I just do the best guess and adjust after as necessary. However recently a very good friend invited us round, and emailed me before with all the carbs for what she was cooking. This came without my asking and I was so touched that she had thought of doing it for me.
 
I too would not ask someone to adjust their cooking just for me, I'd adjust my portion size to suit.....
 
I like a Costa cappuccino and found their website has the different nutritional values, including carbs, for all their food and drinks so that slice of carrot cake or a ham and cheese toastie can be worked in to my daily count. No I don't have this every day but maybe once a month so makes it a nice treat. No doubt other places do similar
 
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