Well my sister and mum were going to Tesco (not a Tesco Express this is a HUGE Tescos in Streatham, London) to grab some food for lunch (sandwiches etc for them) and asked if I wanted a salad or something.. I said I think you will find it difficult to find anything pre-prepared that is low carb as it all comes with pasta or sauce that has carbs but I'd be happy with a bag of salad and some chicken or something..
They returned with a pre-packaged chicken with salad which had a little tub of ranch sauce and said they did indeed find something low carb (I have been diabetic for 30 years my sister is 4 years younger than me and has a law degree and a masters in psychology she is not daft). I looked at the back of the packet and it had 26g carbohydrate in it. Obviously the carbs were in the dressing so I chucked it and got some mayo which has virtually no carbs in it
https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/264365273.
I have 3 points to make about this..
Firstly there is absolutely no excuse to put 26g of carbs(sugar whether it comes directly from sugar it makes no difference) in a dressing with something that anyone would assume to be a really healthy salad. They could have put mayo with it and it would then actually be healthy.
Secondly if my sister, who is intelligent and has grown up with me having 'brittle' diabetes (turns out brittle means more susceptible to insulin resistance) and always looking at the back of the packet to see how many carbs are in it can be fooled by the misleading **** in the traffic light box then what chance does anyone have.
Thirdly, where is the 'helpful' traffic light table that you see on all 'healthy' food that has low added sugar? It really seems to me it generally only appears on the food that is low in added sugar but has loads of carbs in it.
I just feel like crying, ok by now I actually am I admit. I have started this petition to have carbs added to the front of all packaging so people know what they are consuming but it just feels like I'm hitting my head against a brick wall. My sister tells me that I shouldn't be saying the food industry are deliberately trying to mislead people but they are not acknowledging that carbs exist at all and find a way to add them to just about every pre-packaged snack or ready meal.
Here is a link to my petition if anyone does agree with me. But I just feel so disheartened and fed up. I have lost so much to diabetes (I'm registered blind, I had charcots foot, have lost 2.5 toes on my right foot incl big toe, severe internal and external neuropathy, impaired kidney function etc etc) and all these people are getting T2 diabetes (which I now see is worse than controlled T1 as by definition their blood sugars are out of control as mine were (I really have to stay very low carb as I get insulin resistance easily). I genuinely want to help stop the same **** happening to others. It's not like I'm the first one to realise that if things are going wrong you need to reduce your carb intake sometimes drastically at first to get your insulin sensitivity back, but our voices are drowned by the constant stream of misleading and confusing information coming from the food and pharmaceutical industry. Trying to educate people that all carbs raise our blood sugar levels and if your blood sugars are out of control you are consuming to many is just turning me into a joke. Why am I bothering.. I'm spending my own fkn money on fb ads to try and help people and people just think I'm a nut job. I must be!
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/display-carbohydrate-value-on-front-of-all-food-packaging
Rant over. Thanks for listening if you got this far.
