diabetics- your experiences- which CS's to chose?

[emmamc252]

we will be in WDW on free dining in august. myself, DD 12 and my sister all have type 1 diabetes and whilst my sister is less than strict with her diet my daughter and I are very careful about our carbs and we always maintain steady levels.
I was a little surprised that disney will not release the carb or sugar content of their food, but now trying to plan around this. I am not too concerned aobut the table service places, I have put it in our reservations and from what I have read they are excellent. I am however really worried about chosing counter services for our lunch.
Epcot we will go to sunshine seasons as I have read good things there and after seeing the menu on allears I am sure they will have some offerings that we would be good with. But in the other parks I am a bit lost.
eg the disney site recomends falme tree bbqas being a good place bbut all their food is in bbq sauce..... sugar overload?
I spoke to my daughters diabetic nurse at her clinic and she said she had been and had basically been offered a green salad with grilled chicken in most places, not even a low carb dressing alternative or anything?
We are a group of 11 including younger children so I don't want to be trapsing around looking for appropriate food/queing and having to go somewhere else,
we are there for 14 days so would rather not eat salad every day. do they have brown or wholemeal bread? Can anyone with diabetes share their experiences of what they were offered at various counter service restaurants?
Many thanks in advance.

 

[Talking Hands]

I just remove the carb items such as bread on a burger. Salads without dressing. Eat what I can on the plate and let my hubby have the rest. Ask for grapes or apple slices instead of french fries. With all the walking you can probably eat more carbs than usual. I usually go for plain meats and veggies. Best thing is to just test frequently and eat accordingly.

 

[buffettgirl]

I'm not going to be much help as with out child with type 1 we don't restrict carbs, we just dose appropriately with insulin.

If you tell them on your reservations, chances are you'll get a plate of fruit and meat and no bun. The meat will be loaded with fat and the fruit will be loaded with sugar. They'll offer you sugar free items (loaded with sugar alcohol and probably as many carbs as normal items) They are truly clueless about diabetes.

Your best bet is to simply bring your own tools for food - your own phone apps or calorie king book. Because the one necessary item, the carb/sugar content, is the one thing they won't give us.

All the sauces on most of the foods are going to be very high in cornstarch for thickening and high in sugars for flavor (there's a reason why restaurant food tastes so good). Even if you get something like a Babycakes sugar free cake, you can check their website and see that their sugar free items have as many carbs, if not more, than normal baked goods.

 

[GenevieveRaqs]

I made a couple of suggestions on your thread on the Restaurants forum, but wanted to chime in here on salad dressings.

Dressing such as ranch, blue cheese and even most Italians are going to have VERY negligible amounts of carbs, unless you're using massive amounts of dressing. I realize everyone with diabetes is slightly different, but I usually don't even count dressing in my carb counts unless it is fruit based (raspberry vinaigrette, for instance).

 

[goofy_joe]

I think it really depends on how sensitive one's BG values are to various types of food. If you're looking for healthier, then I do think Sunshine Seasons at The Land would be a good place to start. The Katsura Grill in Japan might be another somewhat "light" option, depending on what you get.

 

[Love Tink]

My husband has diabetes and he is often frustrated at the CS restaurants because when he asks for information, or asks to make a price-equal substitution (salad instead of dessert, for example) the results are all over the place. Sometimes people are very helpful, sometimes they are totally clueless.

One thing he likes to do is go to the restaurants that have a really good condiment bar (Pecos Bill and Cosmic Ray's at MK, Restaurantosaurus at AK come to mind) and get a burger with no bun. Then he uses the condiment bar to load up the burger with veggies and salsa.

 

[tami82]

there are many places to get a grilled chicken salad which i ate for many lunches but you dont want to eat salad every day. If you go to a buffet you can get fish, chicken or other protein items for more variety. My suggestion is to print look at all menus beforehand. My 8 year old daughter has Type 1 and is on a pump. She is just a child so we dont limit her carbs, as we can give her a bolus at any time with insulin. You are going to be very busy walking around so that in itself will drop the blood sugar, i dont think a bit of bbq sauce on a piece of chicken is going to do any harm. You also dont want low blood sugars so i think a balance of proteins with a bit of carbs is the way to go. We couldnt possibly not give our daughter carbs or we would have problems as later on in the day, with all of the running around and activity which can cause very low sudden drops (which last year learned the hard way when D had her first seizure on our trip).
At the buffets i remember them having fish such as salmon, roasted chicken pieces and whole grain bread.
You really have to look at the menus and print them out, put them in a folder and plan it that way to see what they offer.

 

[ttintagel]

I just use the same carb values that the same dish at another fast-food restaurant would have, and I've never gone wrong that way.