Communicating About Carbs (the trials and tribulations of)

[AloeSvea]

Hi y'all. Every now and then over the years I come in here and share some of the difficulties in dealing with non-carb-intolerant folks about what I eat and don't eat, by talking about a social situation that has caused me some problems.

First of all - two of the most wonderful things in life - food glorious food! And - friends. Be lost afloat on a lonely island, or, dead, without either of those wonderful
F things!

It's the height of summer and socialising time here in Aotearoa (NZ). Heaps of BBQs and parties, and I am deeply appreciative of the invites and mixing and mingling with fellow home sapiens.

The first big bug bear was a BBQ invite along with my lovely galpal, bless her, where we were invited to bring along dessert. I painstakingly explained to beloved galpal the rules regarding me and food I go by. Number 1 - never ask me as a type two diabetic to bring food that I can't eat for health reasons. So boiled down to - don't ask a T2 diabetic to bring dessert. Then, when beloved galpal waxed lyrical about fruit salad, I explained that it isn't just added sugar, but food that turns into sugar in the blood, ie carbs. My galpal was just not able to get her head around the carb content thing, even though I explained with my best teacher hat on in simplified form in text. (For instance - one blueberry is 1 g of carbs, and I try to keep my carb count for the day to about 20-50g.) It really hurt when I had to fork out money for a share of the fruit salad she prepared and took on our behalf that I wasn't eating. (Yes to some berries.)

I'm just really pleased I forced myself to go as I had a great time, (I almost decided it fell into the too hard basket, but I took a package of meat for me instead) and no one minded me eating lots of communal meat . (And not eating lots of fruit salad that my galpal went to great lengths to tell everyone was no sugar added because of me. Argh!) (i can't tell you how much I hate the 'special food for a, ah, special needs person' thing, especially if they get it wrong!) (my galpal even refers to my 'special needs' - argh!)

Anyway, I'm reminded of it again, as the former hostess and my beloved galpal are coming to me in the countryside for a big national holiday day, and my former hostess said she was bringing plenty of....fruit salad (for me presumably).

Argh!

So back to texting, saying, our mutual friend gets confused about added sugar, and carbs, as I am intolerant to both. And just bring the yummy food she likes to eat and not think about my, er, special needs as I cater to them myself.

I always tell guests of mine to bring their own snack food. It usually works well. And I have a jar of sugar for guests. The only non-conventional sweet thing I make and can eat and is enjoyed by non T2 diabetics also, is my homemade ice cream, sweetened with stevia. Otherwise - they bring their own and eat it - that's the best.

Anyone else want to share experiences of explaining the whole carb/intolerance thing to normal folks?

 

[Melgar]

I think food intolerances and allergies in general are problematic or even dangerous when going out to see friends and eating out at restaurants. Treating carbs as an intolerance is easier for people to understand. I am most certainly the ‘problem person’ when seeing friends and eating out. My issues are not carbs, but gluten. It’s in so many things. Hidden gluten is the bane of my existence. If going to see friends I very often bring my own food. I feel for them having to negotiate all the potential pit falls in ingredients. They really do try, but I can never be sure. At home we have a gluten free house. My daughter, who has coeliac too, lives in LA. She shares a house with two other girls. Unfortunately, she was getting very sick just from the x contamination of gluten in foods. So amazingly, both girls have decided to go gluten free for her, with items that can cross contaminate. People really do try to accommodate in my experience.
I have just returned from California. Freshly prepared food is in abundance there. I do try to eat lower carbs too. My favourite is Mexican food. So corn tacos and Tamales are safe for me, but they send my blood sugars sky high. Enchiladas are often made of wheat flour, so that’s out. I went along to a small Mexican restaurant and gave my usual line about being coeliac. So without further ado the restaurant owner replaced the corn tacos with cheese tacos. He grated a pile of Monteray cheese and placed it on the hot griddle, flipped it over and then placed the hot cheese patty in a taco rack to get the shape and as it cooled it formed a perfect taco shell. He then filled it with freshly made salsa, chopped avocado and cilantro. It was delicious. I often find people really do try to accommodate.

 

[VashtiB]

I completely understand. I also find people think I can eat fruit as well as they have no added sugar. We have suppers after our church sometimes and people make things specially for me and often I just can't eat them. I know what they will do to my levels and I can't do it.

I actually also have a gluten intolerance- never been further diagnosed but a small amount makes me actually quite ill. Keto actually makes that easier as nothing I eat has gluten in it.

I also just tend to bring something with me. I also end up organising more of the catchups at restaurants so I can pick one where there is something I can eat that I don't mind (too much) paying for. I get that there's usually something you can eat but I find that in some places it's not something you particularly like.

 

[Outlier]

I have learned to eat something before I go to social events that involve food. That way it is easier to refuse-refuse-refuse - smiling but refusing - nobody who pushes me until I frown finds the experience worth repeating. Over many years I have had to repeatedly refuse cigarettes (I've never smoked), interesting-ah-herbal offerings, alcohol when I'm driving - now it's carbs. This kind of bad manners in trying to force me to ingest stuff that is going to kill me is yet another power game that people play. I can also do passive aggressive on the lines of "why do you persistently try to give me stuff that is going to kill me?" asked in a sweet gentle voice. But that's my personality and you (all of us) need strategies that work for YOU (us).

Do you have proper friends (who accept that this is for your wellbeing) with whom you can role-play? That can be such a help when practising for the real thing. Standing up to bullies (your friend is bullying) usually only has to happen once. Perhaps your accepting-invitation conversation can be a gentle-but-firm reminder on the lines of "Now remember fruit will kill me so be sure not to expect me to eat any" then navigate the oh a little bit won't hurt you and maybe suggest it's okay you'll bring along a small helping of rat poison. Or the first time say a row of NO-No-no and then smile and say "that should be sufficient refusal so you don't need to press me to eat it again". It may make you cringe because so many of us were brought up to be people-pleasers even if those people don't give a rat's rudder about us, but I promise it gets much easier once they realise you aren't going to be forced to do yourself harm just to make them feel good.

Bullies back down when we stand up to them. Good luck - I promise the first time is never as bad as you suspect it will be. Then you'll wonder why you didn't do this before. Hugs.

 

[AndBreathe]

Frankly, I'd just take a dessert and not eat any of it, provided I was comfortable there would be food I could eat, and of course the fact that if I ended up pushing food around a plate, I would be unlikely to expire before making it home again.

I eat low carb, and am gluten-free, which strikes out a few more foods. If I am asked if there's anything I don't eat, I will usually ask what's in the plan and provided there's something, I ask that they don't alter anything on my account.

I don't see it as anyone else's problem that I don't eat certain stuff.

 

[ianf0ster]

I must be very fortunate in that my friends all accept that I eat 'odd' food - mainly meat, fish, cheese. I always go to restaurants where a small substitution, or just not eating part of a dish can keep me low carb. Hence I just don't seem to get these problems that others complain about. However, I don't have anything as hidden as a gluten intolerance!

 

[Pipp]

Friends have always been very accommodating about my preferred diet choices when we socialise around food. I don’t make any grand anouncements or try to ‘educate’ others, unless they ask. I tend not to eat desserts,o not really an issue. If I was asked to take a dessert to shared meal I would take a selection of cheeses. Though should a ‘sweet’ offering be required would make a simple choc mouuse with crea, and dark choc.

 

[AloeSvea]

I really enjoyed reading the different perspectives, and ways of dealing with food intolerances, and dealing with people.

And hugs are great!

 

[KennyA]

I did a talk last year to a local group about low carb. the talk involved a meal and they said they'd do a low-carb meal. The problem was that they were convinced that low-carb was low-fat. Was a pie alright? How about pasta? Then I was asked if vegan was OK? I think I suggested some roast meat and a salad about six times, but was told that they'd do me something low fat.

In the end I received some boiled (skinned) chicken and steamed vegetables. What I used to think of as invalid food. I honestly think that no matter how many times I said it, they simply didn't understand that I didn't care about fat.... "because fat is bad innit".

 

[AloeSvea]

That is a great talking about carbs and misunderstanding about carbs story @KennyA.

Yes, big confusion out there between low carb and low fat. I also find regular folks can get very stuck and confused about the difference between low carb and low calorie.

That group was very lucky to have you talk to them about it! Did they get that really confused/does not compute look when you (probably?) said we need to eat fat, but we don't need to eat carbs? I have found in my life when educating/talking about such that there is a colossal disbelief at that, as we have all been told the opposite, with accompanying fear of death. I know how I felt when I came across that for the first time (post diagnosis of course).

ps - yuck on the boiled skinned chicken and steamed veg!

 

[KennyA]

I try to deal with it head on and tell people that they are going to hear something that may strike them as a bit unusual, but if they had been around in the 1970s it would have been standard advice... and they ask how many calories I eat, and I tell them I don't know, because I only eat food. I know when I started this low carb life five years ago I had friends who were anxious for my health and told me so. That has gone a bit quiet now.

BTW, the chicken came with a lemon sauce (with plenty of sugar) and there were, of course, chips.

They were actually a very receptive group, and there was one bloke whose wife had been T3 diabetic, and who had low carbed forty years ago. He fully endorsed the idea, which helped. I have a photo of me at a wedding in early 2020 with all my additional 90-odd lbs, and I bring along the suit jacket from the photo, and put it on. That works.

 

[AloeSvea]

Very interesting! And I'm totally with you on the 'head on' as best with this.

My blood glucose is totally shot, but my kidney and heart health is still doing good (touch wood/my head). (My equivalent on the healthy aspect of low carbing/healthy fatting.)

Interesting too that you brought up the weight-loss aspect of successful LCHFing. If folks have healthy BG systems, it's the weight gain/loss aspect of LCHF way of eating that can strike a chord/light a spark in listeners, weight issues being such a , er, big thing, most everywhere and with most folks even, in my experience. LCHF was really successful for me in this regard, and pretty immediate, and I too haul out the equivalent of the jacket (particularly with women), and that's photos of my former-bodied-self on my laptop. (That I have easily accessible for just such ocassions.) My BG is bad, but my weight has maintained at normal with this way of eating. (This confuses the medical professionals, and alas - advocates of Prof Taylor.) (Sigh on the latter. I wish the personal fat threshold re remission had held up for me.)

One of my lines is, "Fat doesn't make you fat, carbs do." And use my own body as contributing evidence. Yes, adds to the confusion for many, for sure.

i also say that no-one, apart from the morbidly obese and sadly those with eating disorders, know about and discuss weight loss (and gain) as much as type two diabetics. This is probably due to my time on the diabetes Forums that lead me to that conclusion. But I do think I am right on that one.

 

[AloeSvea]

ps lemon sauce? Really? Good grief!

And oh yes on the chips. Chips are incredibly yummy but must be one of the singularly horrendous for us foods out there, cos of the bad oil and coating, bar plain old sugar... us being everyone, and particularly those with T2D.

 

[EllieM]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but the perfect low carb dessert for me is .... cheese.

 

[AloeSvea]

Quite right @EllieM. That is my choice too when I am in control of contributions, that and berries in summer. Kiwiland does great preprepared cheese platters for when dashing into the supermarket before getting to the dinner party, too, and there are lots of cracker selections - i do two, one a keto parmesan seed cracker for me, and a usual wheat variety for other folks

 

[AloeSvea]

The keto parmesan cheese cracker is WAY more expensive than the usual wheat variety cracker of course - as five to six times the price. Which brings me to another communication re low carb aspect of this way of eating.

The cost.

Because bought Keto products are very expensive in Kiwiland, and mainly available only in the 'duopoly two cartells' supermarket system (named so by the government commission on the two big supermarket companies) which makes food in Aotearoa/NZ relatively expensive generally, I put my keto crackers on the table in front of me, say what they are, announce that if anyone wants to try them they can, adding that they probably won't like them, but for me because buying this food is a health/lifesaving thing, and I invest relatively a lot of money in this, I ask that if they want to try it, please do, but, please don't then critisize it or tell me what is wrong with it as food . I do this with my own homecooked LCHF products as well. On the grounds it would be adding insult to injury. Because of oh, what an expensive waste!

My own real friends would never do this, but you might be surprised about folks at a shared meal, where there are friends of friends, who feel a need to comment negatively on my LCHF/keto food! Even after my speech. It has been a problem. Sometimes folks are just mean! (Someone above mentioned the word bullying. It could certainly be seen that way sometimes, I agree.) (This is not the situation with my fruit salad galpals though! That is just ongoing confusion re carbs and sugar, coupled with a need to be in control perhaps? possibly yes.)

 

[Antje77]

The keto parmesan cheese cracker is WAY more expensive than the usual wheat variety cracker of course

Why the cracker? A cheese platter only needs cheese. And if you want the cracker, grate some parmesan or other hard cheese on a baking sheet and zap it in the microwave for a couple of minutes, voilá, crackers!

Kiwiland does great preprepared cheese platters for when dashing into the supermarket before getting to the dinner party

Or just buy 4 or 5 different pieces of cheese and cut part of them for your dessert. After that you'll have two weeks worth of delicious cheeses in your fridge.

 

[Pipp]

And if you want the cracker, grate some parmesan or other hard cheese on a baking sheet and zap it in the microwave for a couple of minutes, voilá, crackers!

The concept of cheese on top of cheese, as dessert is a winner for me.

^^^
That is a ‘cheesy grin’!

Seriously , though, @AloeSvea , I take no notice of casual acquaintances trying to dictate what I should or shouldn’t eat. My true friends have mutual respect and we accept each others’ choices. In more than just food.

 

[Outlier]

That is indeed proper friendship.

 

[AloeSvea]

Nice convos about cheese! I am extremely grateful to all the farmers/peasants/milkmaids in my ancestry for giving me tolerance to dairy re those nasty diseases and lactase persistence. i adore the stuff.

But, dear Forum-ones above , I am not the only creature on the planet who really likes the combination of crunchy and cheesy, ie that lovely combo of crackers and cheese. Hence it being a thing. And definitely part of a cheese platter, traditionally. At least in Kiwiland. You can't really turn up with cheeses and without the crackers. Food traditions being a thing .

Quite right re normal cooking fare - one of my faves is frying wee salami pieces with masses of cheese of mixed varieties to melt on the top - yum! But I can't imagine doing that at someone else's house and kitchen. This thread is really about shared meals and party fare and ettiquette thereof, but who doesn't like a byway for cheese? Absolutely me.