I am currently travelling in the US (but in an RV so not using hotels).
The main problem I am seeing is with the food industry, which seems to be unable to produce any food without adding loads of sugar.
The "health" claims seem to centre around no artificial hormones in the meat and no "high fructose corn syrup" in nearly everything else. Oh, and low sodium.
My wife (non-diabetic) is finding it almost impossible to find a muesli without added sugar and has had to make her own from scratch.
I can't find UK-style baked beans anywhere (usually a useful low GI standby) let alone low sugar baked beans. Baked beans here are "ranch style" with loads of brown sugar, and usually bacon as well.
On high fructose corn syrup, from Wikpedia:
In the U.S., HFCS is among the sweeteners that have primarily replaced sucrose (table sugar). Factors for this include governmental production quotas of domestic sugar, subsidies of U.S. corn, and an import tariff on foreign sugar; all of which combine to raise the price of sucrose to levels above those of the rest of the world, making HFCS less costly for many sweetener applications. Critics of the extensive use of HFCS in food sweetening argue that the highly processed substance is more harmful to humans than regular sugar, contributing to weight gain by affecting normal appetite functions, and that in some foods HFCS may be a source of mercury, a known neurotoxin.
This view is disputed by the government and the corn producers.
Back on track; it is a shame that the Atkins Diet is no longer trendy. IIRC at the peak of its fame many food outlets were offering an Atkins option on the menu.
Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the specific diet plan, this would at least give a low carb option on the menu which is easier for the caterers to understand and relate to than the "diabetic" option which as readers of this forum well know is subject to different views and guidance from various sources and so not an easy task for yer average caterer to hit.
As a T2 on diet and exercise I don't have the specific problems of T2s and T1s on insulin but I thought I would try the "diabetic meal" option on the various flights around the world.
The meals didn't seem anything special; certainly not low carb. The first flight, with Quantas from London to SIngapore, had the meal labelled with carb and sugar contents but the rest didn't even have this.
I switched to the vegetarian option because you usually get a better meal than the standard (dry meat) option.
Best of luck with your web site, which I see is understandably weighted towards insulin users who have the most potential problems when travelling.
Cheers
LGC
P.S. why doesn't the US list the alchohol content of beers and wines (as is done in Europe)? Protection for Bud Lite and Miller Lite?
P.P.S. why doesn't the US list carbs and sugars in a standard weight of product (as is done in Europe) instead of in a nominal "portion" which can be of any size.
It is much easier to scan the "in 100g of product there are x grams of carbs of which y grams are sugars" than to try and work out percentages in your head for each product. Especially when nominal portion sizes are different for different variants on similar products.
A standardised approach would make carb and sugar counting and calculations much easier.
