T1D and tasting menus are not an easy mix!
My husband and I celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary last weekend, and it was a full-on trial and error experiment with regards to my T1D.
We went for dinner at The Mackenzie Room with our dear friends who were married the same day, same year – how cool is that?! Our friendship started just shy of 3 years after our weddings, and we’ve mostly been celebrating together ever since.
For dinner, we opted for the chef’s tasting menu: 12 dishes served over 5 courses.
T1D peeps, you know the struggle, don’t cha?
Here’s what I love about tasting menus
They are social.
We were sharing the same dishes, chatting about the foods, and everything else, and comparing favourites from course to course.
They are experiential.
If we were to limit ourselves to just one or two dishes, we would not have gotten that full flavour profile. There were some foods that I may not have chosen, like the beef tartare or the chicken of the sea – both of which were phenomenal.
We would also not have gotten the full server experience either. Our server was so protective of our table, not allowing anyone else to describe the dishes. He gave us his knowledge, his descriptors, his character – all greatly appreciated.
My favourites of the evening were:
- The Showstopper Salad
- Thrilla in Manilla
- Chicken of the Sea
Here’s what I find challenging about tasting menus and T1D
Twelve dishes served over five courses, which took a total of two and half hours to complete.
Insulin dosing before the meal was not an option.
Full bolus for the total meal was also not an option.
And a lot of the carb-centric foods were mostly new to me or extremely difficult to guesstimate for:
- The showstopper salad had, I think, 34 ingredients total, some of which included various legumes.
- Squid ink brioche
- Sobresada, which I didn’t realize was similar to a scalloped potato, until I stuck it in my mouth and asked our server to repeat his description
- Sauces and various purees
- Multi-dish desserts
T1D and tasting menu strategy
Essentially, I was dosing every time a new set of plates arrived at the table. And it was full-on guesstimating.
Luckily, my blood sugars were in a good range before starting the meal (5.3 mmol/L), so I didn’t have to worry about pre-bolusing or dosing to bring down any highs before eating.
My doses ranged between 10-20 grams carbs per course. Five doses delivered over a two hour period, generally spaced 20-30 minutes apart. Blood sugars at the start were 5.3 mmol/L and at the last course were 8.8 mmol/L. When we left the restaurant, they were 9.0 mmol/L. We walked 15 minutes to the skytrain station, and they had reduced to 7.7 mmol/L, but hovered between 7.7-8.3 mmol/L for the 45 minute train duration. It was another 10 minute walk home, and by that time they were down to 6.3 mmol/L. No lows before bed or overnight.
That was a T1D trial and error success!
I do recognize that not all of our T1D trial and error eating experiments go quite so beautifully. So I am going to take this as a win. I am going to revel in this positive T1D experience, along with the positive eating experience. To my friends with T1D, we absolutely should take our wins whenever they come our way!
What are your most challenging eating environments?
Work with Katie Bartel RD for T1D
For those interested, I host regular group workshops on various T1D challenges. Please visit the website to learn more: https://www.katiebartel.ca/be-the-best-t1d-you-can-be/ New dates will be added in the New Year. Alternatively, if you are interested in individual, one-on-one support and live in BC, please reach out to Katie Bartel at info@katiebartel.ca