Low carbing in UK is a nightmare

[StewartH]

Hello!

Do you find low carbing in UK extremely difficult?

In cafes in Spain, Italy, etc, you can have with your delicious coffee, seasoned olives, cheese, deli meats, nuts, and all other nice low carb things.

In UK, cafes are filled with carb bombs and nothing else.

In UK restaurants, you order a plate with meat and the meat is often a small portion, not enough to make you full. In salads, you get sugar ridden dressings and they almost never have olive oil! They don't serve cheese, they don't serve deli in pubs, eveything that has meat is ridiculously expensive and when you pay to get meat, you get it ridiculously lean! Also most cheeses are ridiculously sweet.

It's really struggling to do low carb in the UK, or is the place I am in?

Mediterranean is full of meat and veggies, while UK is only chips, sweet sauces, battered stuff, and pies!

Yes, I agree, cafe food in the UK tends to focus on high sugar carbs so that carboholics can feed their addiction on a regular basis :-o

I find restaurants are better but you need to choose the right ones and you have to negotiate with the waiter. My stance is that if they have the ingredients I want on my plate on the menu somewhere, that they should be able to change a chicken and chips for example into a chicken, broccoli, avocado etc.

I have been T1 for over 35 years and , having switched to LCHF a year ago, for the first time I find that I am the 'difficult eater' in restaurants! But it usually works. It seems true though that if you go to a more expensive restaurant you stand a better chance of success. Keep at it, the wheel is turning and LCHF is gaining popularity. This will change the menus eventually. I am dreaming of tapas heaven )

 

[AtkinsMo]

Since I never have anything to eat with a coffee, I just pass on the cakes and biscuits and never give it a second thought. When we eat out I usually go for plain grilled meat / fish and swap the chips or whatever for salad or extra veg and maybe ask for butter for my veg. If there's no olive oil I have full fat Mayo (the canola oil won't hurt occasionally). Again, desserts hold no charm for me now I've lost my sweet tooth, sometimes I'll have a bit of cheese, but mostly my appetite is satisfied by just a main course. I excuse the more expensive main course choices because I don't have the starter or dessert. The key, for me, is to never worry about the things I can't have and just savour and enjoy the food I can.

 

[Tabbyjoolz]

Depends where you go. I ignore most coffee shops these days as they are a carb fest (and the one thing I really miss is cake). Lucky for me I live in London so I tend to frequent the likes of Crussh (they do Bulletproof coffee, scrambled eggs etc) and Abokado. Even Pret has hard-boiled eggs and spinach.

Greasy spoon cafes are OK (order individually items like eggs, bacon, tomatoes, mushrooms and turn down the offer of toast or bread).

Christmas lunch at work doesn't look too bad a minefield. I work in a conference and exhibition centre and so there is onsite catering. I'll stick to the meat and veggies, avoid the mince pies and mulled wine, and will eat the trifle as I've eaten that before and got only a small BS spike afterwards.

If dining out I download the restaurant menu and look for options I can eat.

The other day I attended a funeral and I was a little apprehensive about what food there might be at the wake. Luckily, among all the sandwiches and sausage rolls I found sliced raw veg, cheesy dip, nuts, cheese and pickles on little sticks and chipolatas.

 

[mcdougall86]

I find eating in restaurants fairly easy, but it's coffee shops and cafes that are a nightmare. Costa for example don't have any salads at this time of year so there are no low carb options for lunch there at all. It's so frustrating!

 

[Trebor2516]

Hello!

Do you find low carbing in UK extremely difficult?

In cafes in Spain, Italy, etc, you can have with your delicious coffee, seasoned olives, cheese, deli meats, nuts, and all other nice low carb things.

In UK, cafes are filled with carb bombs and nothing else.

In UK restaurants, you order a plate with meat and the meat is often a small portion, not enough to make you full. In salads, you get sugar ridden dressings and they almost never have olive oil! They don't serve cheese, they don't serve deli in pubs, eveything that has meat is ridiculously expensive and when you pay to get meat, you get it ridiculously lean! Also most cheeses are ridiculously sweet.

It's really struggling to do low carb in the UK, or is the place I am in?

Mediterranean is full of meat and veggies, while UK is only chips, sweet sauces, battered stuff, and pies!

The reason it is so difficult in UK is because the NHS are still pushing carbs as good for you. I hve done the 8 week Blood Sugar diet, as you say it is difficult if you are going out with friends. Now I have finished the 8 weeks I go out, eat from the menu, and pick up the diet again next day to get back to low BS counts. I have also written to my MP regarding the advice NHS is giving to diabetics.

 

[WithoutSugar]

I love pizza once and then and ofcourse I only eat the toppings.

but when I order they have hideously poor toppings, very few deli meat, very few cheese, so I cannot eat enough

 

[bulkbiker]

The reason it is so difficult in UK is because the NHS are still pushing carbs as good for you. I hve done the 8 week Blood Sugar diet, as you say it is difficult if you are going out with friends. Now I have finished the 8 weeks I go out, eat from the menu, and pick up the diet again next day to get back to low BS counts. I have also written to my MP regarding the advice NHS is giving to diabetics.

I don't think that is the reason that cafes are chock full of carbs.. it's because carby foods are cheap to make and last for ages so have a huge profit margin just like the coffee.

 

[Oldvatr]

Hello!

Do you find low carbing in UK extremely difficult?

In cafes in Spain, Italy, etc, you can have with your delicious coffee, seasoned olives, cheese, deli meats, nuts, and all other nice low carb things.

In UK, cafes are filled with carb bombs and nothing else.

In UK restaurants, you order a plate with meat and the meat is often a small portion, not enough to make you full. In salads, you get sugar ridden dressings and they almost never have olive oil! They don't serve cheese, they don't serve deli in pubs, eveything that has meat is ridiculously expensive and when you pay to get meat, you get it ridiculously lean! Also most cheeses are ridiculously sweet.

It's really struggling to do low carb in the UK, or is the place I am in?

Mediterranean is full of meat and veggies, while UK is only chips, sweet sauces, battered stuff, and pies!

LC diet works if you cook from scratch, but yes, eating out is a problem as you point out. Certain supermarts seem to cater for the quick snack TV dinner style of life, and it is actuallly quite difficult to find wholesome fare on their shelves, Aisles dedicated to crisps and snax, freezers dedicated to chips and yorkshire puds, but less than half a freezer holding reasonable veg products. Even the cauli comes with sugary cheese sauce or dipped coatings. I get highs from eating their fish fingers, but am fine with home made ones. Again, the advice is to avoid processed foods like the plague, which I interpret as being food that is messed around with to make it appetising to kids. The brighter the package colours, the sillier the cartoon characters, the greater the need to avoid. Think traffic lights could apply to the package not the contents

 

[WithoutSugar]

I don't think that is the reason that cafes are chock full of carbs.. it's because carby foods are cheap to make and last for ages so have a huge profit margin just like the coffee.

exactly

I am surprised how come a whole nation has learned to love carbs, just because greedy companies promote them. Carbs are cheap the cheapest thing you can eat. But people in other countries won't consider to have garlic bread or chips as a main. Yet, in many cases here I see people walking to the kebab shop and ordering chips only! and they have them drenched in ketcup or in the best case, some cheese on top. And that's their dinner!

The other day our company got us to the pub for a beer and wanted some snacks and they had chips and garlic bread for us! In other countries you would get sausages, salamis, cheese!

Also, I don't understand that cranberry sauce, apple sauce, sweet chilli sauce, etc of british and other cuisines, like chinese. In mediterranean cuisine you have absolutely no sweet taste in your food. No fruits in food, or other sweet stuff. Ofcourse there are desserts but it's totally different thing.

 

[Energize]

Hi @WithoutSugar

Having sauces with certain meat dishes is traditional and cultural in Britain.

Historically, there will be a good reason for this and this link - http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2009/10/why-apple-with-pork.html explains why we eat apple sauce, traditionally, with pork. Other traditional meals with a particular sauce are Lamb with Mint Sauce, Beef with Horseradish sauce, Turkey with Cranberry sauce, Chicken with Bread sauce, to mention the most common meats.

Culture develops because of a reason, although the reason may not still be particularly valid. So, if you're not a native of Britain, it's quite possible you wouldn't understand the reasons why, unless you do some research.

Mediterranean dishes will also, no doubt, be stemmed in local culture, for whatever reason.

I agree that carbs are a large part of the British diet, in general. As you've noticed, chips, crisps, sweets are very popular and are a relatively cheap food, hence the popularity perhaps.

 

[Resurgam]

The only sauce we ever had at home was mint, there was gravy or custard, but nothing else.
I shop at Lidl and find lots of vegetables to buy, both fresh and frozen, the meat is good, there is fish without additives. After eating low carb for decades I do tend to ignore the carby foods, just do not notice them. When I had to change my diet to try to lower cholesterol I was looking around for ages to find what I needed to buy, I was just so used to ignoring it.

 

[Brunneria]

Hi @WithoutSugar

Having sauces with certain meat dishes is traditional and cultural in Britain.

Historically, there will be a good reason for this and this link - http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2009/10/why-apple-with-pork.html explains why we eat apple sauce, traditionally, with pork. Other traditional meals with a particular sauce are Lamb with Mint Sauce, Beef with Horseradish sauce, Turkey with Cranberry sauce, Chicken with Bread sauce, to mention the most common meats.

Culture develops because of a reason, although the reason may not still be particularly valid. So, if you're not a native of Britain, it's quite possible you wouldn't understand the reasons why, unless you do some research.

Mediterranean dishes will also, no doubt, be stemmed in local culture, for whatever reason.

I agree that carbs are a large part of the British diet, in general. As you've noticed, chips, crisps, sweets are very popular and are a relatively cheap food, hence the popularity perhaps.

Great link @energise
Also, fruit + savoury appears in many dishes and in many cultures across the world.

Morocco (apricots and lamb)
India (fruit in curries)
North American Indian (pemmican)
To name but a few...

The difference is that these dishes all evolved when sugar and other sweet flavours were really scares or really expensive. Back then, adding apple to pork, or apricot to lamb, was enough. Now, the sugar is cheaper than apples (and less perishable too) so the sweetness has risen in line with expectations - because cheap sugar is in everything.

Plus, of course, the UK fresh fruit season is very short, due to the climate. 50 years ago, strawberries were expensive treats available for a few weeks a year. Outside that period, to taste a strawberry required some kind of preservation, and sugar is the obvious answer. So sweet preserved fruit was a useful method to reduce wastage and give the taste of Summer in mid-Winter, and as such they have always been enjoyed as something a little special, even if freely available nowadays.

 

[Annie_B23]

So I've just seen this week that in Bella Italia you can swap out your pasta for corgetti. This makes it a lot easier.... granted only in one place though, but good to know.

 

[Geordie_P]

exactly

I am surprised how come a whole nation has learned to love carbs, just because greedy companies promote them. Carbs are cheap the cheapest thing you can eat. But people in other countries won't consider to have garlic bread or chips as a main. Yet, in many cases here I see people walking to the kebab shop and ordering chips only! and they have them drenched in ketcup or in the best case, some cheese on top. And that's their dinner!

The other day our company got us to the pub for a beer and wanted some snacks and they had chips and garlic bread for us! In other countries you would get sausages, salamis, cheese!

Also, I don't understand that cranberry sauce, apple sauce, sweet chilli sauce, etc of british and other cuisines, like chinese. In mediterranean cuisine you have absolutely no sweet taste in your food. No fruits in food, or other sweet stuff. Ofcourse there are desserts but it's totally different thing.

I don't suppose it's because of companies: Britain, Ireland, Germany, Scandinavia, Northern Europe, Eastern Europe tend to be fairly carb heavy for ancient reasons of climate and produce, southern Europe much less so. It's similar around the world- Northern China uses wheat as a staple and their food is much more bread and noodle based, whereas the south is much more based around rice. Come to think of it, even Italy is much more based around polenta, pasta and rice in some regions.

 

[tim2000s]

exactly

I am surprised how come a whole nation has learned to love carbs, just because greedy companies promote them. Carbs are cheap the cheapest thing you can eat. But people in other countries won't consider to have garlic bread or chips as a main. Yet, in many cases here I see people walking to the kebab shop and ordering chips only! and they have them drenched in ketcup or in the best case, some cheese on top. And that's their dinner!

The other day our company got us to the pub for a beer and wanted some snacks and they had chips and garlic bread for us! In other countries you would get sausages, salamis, cheese!

Also, I don't understand that cranberry sauce, apple sauce, sweet chilli sauce, etc of british and other cuisines, like chinese. In mediterranean cuisine you have absolutely no sweet taste in your food. No fruits in food, or other sweet stuff. Ofcourse there are desserts but it's totally different thing.

I think you may be over-romanticising those dishes a little. There are tons of sweet flavours in mediterranean savoury foods, including balsamic vinegar and honey.

And if you dig through the range of, for example, greek, italian or french dishes, no, they may not all come with Chips, but plenty of them use rice, potatoes, pastry (Filo) and pasta to a huge extent, so I think your ruminations over what is considered good or bad plates is sorely misplaced. I've spent plenty of time in the south of France, Spain and Greece and just because there is an option of olives or salamis, doesn't mean that's all they serve, even as snacks. One of the biggest mediterranean foods is paella, which you'd hardly call low carb....

 

[kittypoker]

I don't have a problem. Restaurants may have high carb foods on offer, but whether or not I eat them is my choice, and I choose not to. You can't blame the restaurants, which are only trying to make a living by catering to the public taste. Should they have a low carb menu? Absolutely. Will it happen? Not a hope.

I can go anywhere in the world and have a fillet of fish or a steak and salad, hold the dressing. It's down to me, myself and I.

 

[StewartH]

exactly

I am surprised how come a whole nation has learned to love carbs, just because greedy companies promote them. Carbs are cheap the cheapest thing you can eat. But people in other countries won't consider to have garlic bread or chips as a main. Yet, in many cases here I see people walking to the kebab shop and ordering chips only! and they have them drenched in ketcup or in the best case, some cheese on top. And that's their dinner!

The other day our company got us to the pub for a beer and wanted some snacks and they had chips and garlic bread for us! In other countries you would get sausages, salamis, cheese!

Also, I don't understand that cranberry sauce, apple sauce, sweet chilli sauce, etc of british and other cuisines, like chinese. In mediterranean cuisine you have absolutely no sweet taste in your food. No fruits in food, or other sweet stuff. Ofcourse there are desserts but it's totally different thing.

In the UK our diet has been widely influenced by the Standard American Diet. SAD but true We adopted the same 'dietary advice' to broadcast to the population in the 70's. This policy, promoting low fat high carb, normalised high carb meals in our country. To see how insane this policy was (and continues to be) have a look at this. Shocking!

In other European countries they seem to have hung onto their traditional diets for longer, but the tidal wave of commercial high carb foods seems to be sweeping across all nations.

 

[douglas99]

In the UK our diet has been widely influenced by the Standard American Diet. SAD but true We adopted the same 'dietary advice' to broadcast to the population in the 70's. This policy, promoting low fat high carb, normalised high carb meals in our country. To see how insane this policy was (and continues to be) have a look at this. Shocking!

In other European countries they seem to have hung onto their traditional diets for longer, but the tidal wave of commercial high carb foods seems to be sweeping across all nations.

Very true,
pasta and pizza in Italy,
paella in spain,
croissants and baguettes in france,
noodles in poland
waffles in belgium
stammpot in holland (potatoes)

The grass is always greener.......
Sure it's just us?

 

[kittypoker]

I think you may be over-romanticising those dishes a little. There are tons of sweet flavours in mediterranean savoury foods, including balsamic vinegar and honey.

And if you dig through the range of, for example, greek, italian or french dishes, no, they may not all come with Chips, but plenty of them use rice, potatoes, pastry (Filo) and pasta to a huge extent, so I think your ruminations over what is considered good or bad plates is sorely misplaced. I've spent plenty of time in the south of France, Spain and Greece and just because there is an option of olives or salamis, doesn't mean that's all they serve, even as snacks. One of the biggest mediterranean foods is paella, which you'd hardly call low carb....

Absolutely right. We lived in Madrid for five years, between 1996 and 2000, and tortilla (a potato-based omelette), sardines on toast and paella were staples. Our fave restaurant was a pizza place. Hubby had so much fun translating between the American tourists and the waiters. One asked why they wouldn't accept dollars for payment. Um, because this is Spain and they use pesetas? Well, did back then.

Our Spanish friends were not all slim and healthy but had the same obesity issues we did. The McDonalds off Plaza del Sol sold lager, as did they all!