Spencer is a 28 year old who is living with type 1 diabetes. He moves between London, Essex and the Midlands, working in Business Development for the International Trade industry, and stays only where there is a fridge to store his insulin.Diabetes is a lifelong condition that causes a person's blood sugar (glucose) level to become too high. The hormone insulin, produced by the pancreas, is responsible for controlling the amount of glucose in the blood. Type 1 is where the pancreas doesn't produce any insulin.Eating a healthy balanced diet is one of the main ways that those with Diabetes can help manage their condition, to which there is no cure.It is suggested that over 4 million people are living with diabetes in the UK alone, and that this number is likely to rise to 5 million by 2025. If you would like to find out any more information about type 1 diabetes, then the NHS information page is a great place to start.Spencer was able to give us a really good insight into the experience of eating out with this condition, including a snapshot of the types of issues he has to consider on a daily basis.Over to Spencer...How many times a week do you eat out and roughly how much do you spend?
- I’d say I eat out 2/3 times a week on average.
What foods can you not eat or wish to avoid?
- I am a type 1 diabetic (but an absolute foodie) so as you can imagine, sometimes, my head has real dilemmas with itself over food. Having said that, I do tend to avoid refined sugars (apart from the occasional treat). As a T1D I calculate my insulin doses using the DAFNE method (this stands for Dose Adjustment for Normal Eating). This basically allows me to count my carbs and inject my insulin accordingly. However, the issue I have with eating out is most restaurants are unable to tell me how many carbs on my plate (at home I weigh things out so I know exactly what I am eating)! So 9 times out of 10 I have to guess (although, having been a diabetic for 14 years and counting, I have become pretty accurate with my estimates). Still… being able to have greater accuracy with those figures would be great for confidence with eating out and managing my condition.
How do you decide where to eat?
- Recommendations/Word of Mouth, Previous experience in the restaurant or publications such as Time Out.
What would make eating out easier for you and allow you to #eatwithconfidence?
- As I’m sure you’re aware, restaurants have to provide allergen info relating to the food on their menu(s). However, (as far as I know) the information regarding content stops there. Having some nutritional information on their dishes would be a great help to me as a T1D to, as you say, #eatwithconfidence. I would suggest menus carry a QR code that can be scanned using an app which would then open up that restaurant’s menu and corresponding nutritional/allergen info for each dish contained therein.
Tell us your favourite restaurant?
- As a foodie, I find this question IMPOSSIBLE to answer. So I think it’ll be easier to break it down into three areas….. Fish, Meat and Junk.
- Fish – Has got to be Bonnie Gull Seafood Shack in Soho. Fresh fish, cooked to perfection and as far as seafood restaurants go it doesn’t burn your weekly social spend.
- Meat – I cannot describe how tough this is…. But I’m going to say The Harwood Arms in Chelsea. It was London’s first Michelin starred gastropub (last time I went we had a venison shoulder and it was fantastic).
- Junk – Again, this is SO tough but any of the Meat Liquor chains do it for me. I recently went to Meat Mission and for sloppy but good junk food, this place ticks all the boxes (and as an aside they have a great cocktail menu).
Kafoodle's software works to help people like Spencer #eatwithconfidence.
Our cloud-based kitchen management system connects chefs to the customer and everyone else in between. We ensure that all parties can successfully and compliantly access the nutritional and allergen information of your menu (using QR codes!)You can find out more about what Kafoodle can do for you here or by contacting us directly at: info@kafoodle.com or on 020 3371 0450
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