The bittersweet problem of menus without 'added sugar' labels

COMMENT

An Englishman, an Irishman and a person with diabetes walk into a pub dining room … No, I haven't heard that one before either. Eating out in a pub, cafe or restaurant can be a challenge for someone with diabetes and it's certainly no joke for 1.7 million Australians diagnosed with the disease.

I've had Type 1 diabetes for too many years to mention and eating out used to be easier. It now requires mathematical genius in counting carbohydrates, partly for reasons that are among the great benefits of life in modern Australia.

One reason is the focus today on creative cooking, with exciting new recipes appearing in newspapers, magazines, books, television programs and restaurants. Wonderful and inspiring, to be sure, but there is now added sugar in many meals, cunningly hidden in savoury courses where it never used to be.

For someone with diabetes, it helps if you know the sugar is there, listed as an ingredient, but often it isn't. You ask the waiter – is there any added sugar in this? The answer is a confident no, then later you find out there is added honey, or corn syrup, or maple syrup, or caramel, or concentrated fruit juice, or myriad other sweet things. (Choice magazine found that food companies use more than 40 different names for hidden sugar such as muscovado, rapadura and barley malt.) Additional sweetness is cleverly masked by the touch of a sour ingredient.

Complex carbohydrates are nice and friendly for someone with diabetes. They have a lower glycaemic index (GI) and are absorbed by the body more slowly. Simple sugars with high GI cause a rapid spike in blood glucose. This may come down as quickly as it goes up. During the day, you feel ill if your blood glucose is either too low or too high. In the evening, an unnecessary extra injection can cause a dangerous overnight hypoglycaemia.

Another reason for the increased challenge is the variety of global cuisines available in Australia. We are so lucky. But each cuisine has its own tricky ways of hiding sugar (palm sugar in Thai food, for example). Again, this is less problematic if the menu informs you, or if the waiters are knowledgeable, but even they may not know the ingredients in items imported by the kitchen.

People with coeliac disease are generally well catered for with gluten-free options in restaurants but there are far more people with diabetes than coeliac disease in Australia.

It might be a First World problem but it's a shame if people are discouraged from going out to eat because of hidden sugar. (I haven't even started on sugar in drinks.)

Restaurants, please: just an accurate "added sugar" label or symbol would help. (In courses other than desserts of course – we're not stupid!). With Australia's ballooning obesity crisis, maybe less "added sugar" would be good for everyone.

Diana Snape is a Good Food reader from Balwyn, Victoria.