Travelling, Low-Carb, and Normal Blood Glucose - Part 2

In this post, I’ll share how we used our time in Australia to help get our son with T1D ready for university from a food perspective. Our family follows Therapeutic Carbohydrate Reduction for Type 1 diabetes -  a low-carb way of eating that helps our son achieve normal blood sugars and make T1D easier to manage!  

In case you missed my last post, our family recently visited Australia. While we now live in Canada, BECAUSE my husband is Australian, our family has lived in both countries, and we decided to come back to Australia to visit our oldest child – our daughter, who just started university in Australia this past February.

Our son Lachlan, who lives with T1D, is about to enter Grade 12. He sees what a great time his sister is having and is interested in checking out some universities while we are over here. He is thinking about going to Australia after high school.

So while we are in Australia, we were showing Lachlan some university campuses, and while we doing this, as parents, my husband, Matt and I are thinking about how we can help prepare Lachlan to live independently at university during his first year on campus and maintain his low-carb lifestyle.

In this video, I will share what we did when we were in Australia “food-wise” to get ready for Lachlan to come to university and be able to eat low-carb while he’s studying and living on his own.

For his first year living away from home, our son’s aim is to live on-campus in a student residence, a “residential college”, during his first year at university.

So we looked at three main food sources for a student living on campus in first year:

1. Dining hall food options at student residences/residential colleges
2. On-campus food outlets
3. Food sources from off campus

And when we’re sourcing low-carb foods for him to eat at university, we are aiming to find foods that help him safely maintain normal blood sugars and nourish his body with the nutrients he needs.

My son is considering going to the residential college that his sister currently attends. We’ve visited my daughter’s residential college and its dining hall. On move-in day this past February, parents were invited to share a meal with their kids at the dining hall, so I’ve eaten a meal there myself. I was pleasantly surprised to see how fresh and “real” the food is that they serve, and they try to accommodate the dietary needs of their students, so that’s a good start! My daughter’s friend at her residential college has a Celiac diagnosis, and they have daily gluten-free options as well as also catering to students who eat vegetarian and vegan diets.

That dining hall serves three meals a day. There is a good-looking salad bar that is offered every day for all meals, including breakfast, and Lachlan went to test it out and had a couple of meals there with his sister. He found foods that were safe on blood sugars without him even mentioning his low-carb way of eating. So that residential college’s dining hall looks promising! If Lachlan decides to go there and gets in, we will ask to meet with the kitchen staff and work out how Lachlan can eat foods that help keep his blood sugar stable.

This makes me feel better because back in July, Lachlan and I toured some other university campuses back home in Canada, and I must admit, it makes me concerned to see the lack of options available to students who want to avoid eating heavily processed foods and want to follow a low-carb lifestyle. We found one great university with a residential college that has a dining hall with a personal chef who will cater to students’ specific dietary needs, which we fully appreciated. Other than that one option, our basic research revealed that many campus meal plans are tied to fast-food options with a limited selection of fresh, low-carb foods that would help a person manage Type 1 diabetes.

So that’s our initial research into university residences’ dining hall options to date!

Our family also checked out the on-campus food outlets in Australia, and at the one university that my son seems most interested in attending, there didn’t seem to be a lot of options, as I mentioned in my last video. To be fair, we didn’t spend a lot of time seeking out options and checking menus. We just did a quick walk-through of the food outlets on campus, so we would need to spend more time looking at this, but the on-campus food outlets were primarily selling high-carb sandwiches, baked goods, rice dishes, and breaded fried foods, all of which would result in blood sugar spikes and make Lach feel terrible after he ate.

As I mentioned in my last post, we were happy to find an on-campus Mexican restaurant that worked well with its salad bowls topped with protein and guacamole. Now, fortunately, if you live in a student residence or residential college as a first-year student, you’re likely going to eat all meals at your dining hall, so not a huge deal that the on-campus food outlets are lacking. If you were an adult working at the university though and wanted to pick up a low-carb lunch that would result in stable blood sugars, I’m not sure where you’d go to eat on campus.

Finally, I was trying to think outside the box for low-carb food that Lach could access during his first year away from home. First-year uni students, especially those who play sports and who study/slash party late into the night, may need food at times other than the 3 set mealtimes at the dining hall.

A short bus ride away is a shopping mall with various grocery stores and a selection of low-carb snacks, plus a few restaurants with low-carb meals, so Lachlan was introduced to those options and how to choose foods that are similar to what we have at home. I also stumbled upon a GREAT option for a kid like Lachlan who is managing T1D using a low-carb diet, while living on his own for the first time.

Through a google search, I found a blessing in Brisbane! A small business called Keto Loco. They serve ready-made, low-carb meals and snacks that can be ordered each week and either picked-up on site or delivered directly to you. I spoke on the phone with the very friendly owner of Keto Loco. She says she loves to cook, and all of her ingredients are of the highest quality: fresh foods, no seed oils, no cutting corners on the food quality, a low-carbers’ dream for healthy convenience! I’ll put their contact details in the post.

Because Lachlan can have a fridge in his room at residence, I think Keto Loco provides a great option for food when he’s hungry outside dining hall hours. The meals can be microwaved or heated in an oven. There is no full kitchen at the residential college he is considering, so the microwave it will be! Keto Loco to the rescue as a wonderful option for the future if he goes to university in this city!

While we were in Australia, we did two lots of Keto Loco orders, so Lachlan could try the meals. He liked Keto Loco’s low-carb meat pie and meals like Chili Beef with Lime Cauli Rice; and Meatballs with Cauliflower Puree, Broccoli and Mushrooms; and a Cauliflower Mac and Cheese. Of course, these low-carb convenience foods will factor into our planning of the financial cost of first-year university. I view this as the cost of helping our son maintain his health. As he adjusts to managing Type 1 diabetes on his own, Matt and I want him to have options that facilitate this transition, so he can focus on ordering insulin and diabetes supplies and getting T1D management down, and then he can turn his attention to cooking for himself in second year, when he may live in an apartment.

In the United States, I see that Bethany and River at LetMeBe 83 share that the company, BioCoach, offers a similar service to Keto Loco in the US and is a tasty, convenient option for stable blood sugars. I also recently found a fabulous Keto restaurant and bakery in southern Ontario in Canada called Sugar Daddies with various locations and delivery options, which can provide a similar option if Lachlan goes to university in that area.

Our son has been eating this way since he’s been nine years old to support better diabetes outcomes, and I believe it is up to Matt and me as his parents to help him transition to living independently in a way that make T1D easier to manage and protect his health, so he can focus on all the great times and opportunities that first-year uni and living away from home can bring! After our trip to Australia, Lachlan has a better idea of how he will maintain a low-carb lifestyle when he heads off to university.

If you have any other suggestions for me and other parents preparing to send their kids with T1D away to university and college, please – I’d love you to share them with me! Please post them in the comments below.

 

If you are a parent committed to transforming your child's T1D management, help them get off the blood sugar rollercoaster, safely achieve normal blood glucose levels, relieve your stress and anxiety, and lead them to a brighter, healthier future, visit T1D Nutrition:

 

Get the latest on how to successfully manage T1D via a Therapeutic Carbohydrate Reduction/Low-carb Nutrition strategy, follow T1D Nutrition via:

 

Keto Loco: for those in Australia, in the Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, or Toowoomba areas, visit: https://ketoloco.com.au/, or follow Keto Loco on Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/crazygoodfoodketostyle

 

Let Me Be 83: My Dude with Diabetes: for those in the US, check out the BioCoach deal via Let Me Be 83: https://biocoach.io/discount/Bethany10