Navigating a Hotel Breakfast with Type 1 Diabetes
A hotel breakfast buffet can offer plenty of choice. The key is knowing what to look for, what to question and how to build a breakfast that works for you.
Following a ketogenic diet as someone with Type 1 Diabetes doesn’t have to mean missing out on eating out with friends or enjoying a breakfast out on weekends.
In most situations, there will be something you can work with
The Scenario
You’re at the hotel breakfast buffet and you’re having to ‘pick your own adventure’, while managing both food choices and insulin.
Many hotels provide a full breakfast buffet. Others offer only a continental breakfast. A continental breakfast typically has fewer choices and is more likely to feature bread, cereals, pastries and fruit juice. Some will also provide cured meats and cheeses, which can be useful choices if you are following a low-carbohydrate or ketogenic diet.
The important point is that you don’t need the hotel to provide a special “diabetes” or “keto” breakfast.
You need to know how to navigate what is already there. And it is usually not as difficult as you might think.
The Strategy: Before Entering the Breakfast Room
Before entering the breakfast room, you will have checked your blood glucose and considered whether you need any correction insulin.
For some people, this may include a small correction for the dawn phenomenon.
Now let’s look at the buffet.
AT THE HOT BUFFET
Sausages
Sausages vary considerably in their carbohydrate content. There is no reliable way to know simply by looking at them.
Ask. The hotel staff may be able to provide the nutritional information or tell you what ingredients are used.
Black pudding
Black pudding can contain a moderate amount of carbohydrate because some recipes include cereal or potato.
Again, the important lesson is to understand what you are eating rather than assuming that a traditional breakfast food is automatically carbohydrate-free.
The obvious high-carbohydrate choices
Hash browns, fried bread and baked beans are much easier to identify. They are carbohydrate-rich foods and would not normally fit a ketogenic breakfast.
What about the rest?
Fried eggs, mushrooms and scrambled eggs can all work well.
Tomatoes contain carbohydrate, although not in particularly large amounts. At around 4g of carbohydrate per 100g, they are not necessarily a problem, but remember that carbohydrates add up when several foods are combined.
The lesson here is simple: Don’t judge the whole buffet. Judge what is on your plate.
The Cold Table: Meats and Cheeses
This section of the buffet can be particularly useful. Cured meats and cheeses are generally very low in carbohydrate and can provide an easy basis for a ketogenic breakfast.
There are still a couple of things to watch, especially if the meat is smoked or has a BBQ flavouring added. Savoury flavours can often hide hidden sugars.
Other sauces to look out for include ketchup, brown sauce or balsamic vinegar, which can contain around 10g of carbohydrate per 100ml. That doesn’t mean you cannot use it; a small amount is very different from drinking 100ml. But it is another example of why apparently insignificant ingredients can add up.
Fruit and Yoghurt
This is where things become less straightforward. Fruit looks healthy, but “healthy” does not necessarily mean low in carbohydrate.
The first question is: What has been added to the fruit?
Fresh fruit is generally easier to assess because there are fewer hidden ingredients.
Fruit salads may be a little more challenging as many contain syrups or fruit juice to help sweeten the dish and prevent the fruit from browning. Fruit salads are also often rich in tropical fruit, such as bananas, mangoes and pineapples, which are naturally high in sugar.
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“Don't judge the whole buffet. Judge what is on your plate.”
— Dr Ian Lake
A hotel buffet doesn’t need to be labelled “keto” or “diabetes-friendly”. The skill is knowing which foods work for you — and where carbohydrate may be hiding.
Look at the individual choices, not the buffet as a whole.
This reinforces the central idea of the article without repeating the fruit section we’ve just written.
Berry Good!
Berries, such as blueberries, raspberries and blackberries, may be a better option, but you still need to check whether they are sitting in juice or syrup.
Think “a handful, rather than a bowlful”.
Yoghurt
The same principle applies to yoghurt. Flavoured and fruit yoghurts can contain significant amounts of added sugar, whereas plain yoghurt is generally a better choice.
Greek or Greek-style yoghurt is often relatively low in carbohydrate, but check the nutritional information rather than relying on the name alone.
Milk Alternatives
Unsweetened coconut or almond milk can fit a low-carbohydrate approach, but check the label.
Oat milk is a different proposition and is generally much higher in carbohydrate.
THE HIGHER-CARB TABLE
Fruit Juice and Smoothies
The carafes of fruit juice and smoothies are the easy ones to identify. They can contain a substantial amount of rapidly available carbohydrate and therefore don’t fit a ketogenic breakfast.
Cereals, Bread, Pastries — with Jam and Honey
This is the section of the buffet that often lures you in with smells of freshly baked pastry and golden jars of honey. But be alert: while many think of honey as a ‘natural product’ and therefore ‘healthy’, it contains roughly 70% sugar — a mix of fructose and glucose — which your body still needs to process the same way it would with the sugar from jam or cereal.
Cereals, breads, pastries and pies are part of the buffet ‘adventure’ which you’ll need to leave behind.
The Finished Plate
There is no special “Type 1 diabetes breakfast.”
A practical hotel breakfast might include eggs, mushrooms, some suitable sausage, bacon, cheese and cured meats, perhaps with a small amount of tomato.
You could add a suitable portion of plain Greek yoghurt if it fits your individual carbohydrate target.
Part of the “pick your own adventure” is to identify the foods that work for you, understand the carbohydrate content of the less obvious items, and then manage your insulin accordingly.