Thank-you so much to everyone who has responded.
Apologies, just started on the wards so just got a chance to come check responses again.
@Squire Fulwood As far as I am aware, there are no regulations to control what can and cannot be labelled as diabetic. Most foods labelled as diabetic tend to be sweet food items such as chocolates, biscuits, ice-cream, deserts, etc. These tend to have sugar alcohols in them which supposedly do not affect blood sugar levels as much as your normal sugar. However, as others have pointed out, consumption of these foods can cause unpleasant bloating and diarrhoea.
I have not personally seen diabetic labelled savoury meals, that is not to say that they don't exist. I have just noticed that the majority of the diabetic labelled foods are sweet items as opposed to savoury items. I think this may be due to the fact that savoury foods generally speaking do not have as much sugar in them anyway.
@Pipp Good question about whether these responses have made me reconsider my focus. Firstly, I doubt those who have taken the time to sign up and participate in an online forum such as this represent the general diabetic population. I think my focus will much remain the same but I may place more emphasis on finding out the reasons behind people not consuming diabetic labelled foods. There is clearly a market out there for these foods, and it would be interesting to see how many do and do not eat these diabetic foods, and who buys it for them, as a few have said is actually friends and family who purchase diabetic foods for them, as well as general beliefs of those who do consume them.