Dietary Restrictions

Frank -

I am not sure where you are going so I will only add here about France.

You should be able to get omelette here easily. Also, doing some local grocery shopping for nuts, yogurt etc. many of the Epicerie will have things like this for sale in single sizes.

You can also order an assiette de fromage (cheese plate) - often this is listed in desserts - if you don;t see it ask - often they will make one for you.

Also - it is common to have hamburger (patty) here without the bun. Usually served with salad. So you won't have much of the bun removal.

Thanks, Jona. France is actually one of the easiest countries. Not a heavy dependency on potatoes, pasta or rice. I can just skip the bread. I'm just not sure what to do about breakfast. Probably visit a grocery for some plain yogurt.

It's areas like Great Britain, Ireland, and Italy that concern me. As of now, my trip is to GB, Ireland and France/Belgium.

Thanks all....on my previouis trips to the UK, my standard lunch would be one taken in a pub--bangers & mash, shepherds pie, fish & chips. Unfortunately, no more of those. I panicked. What I was going to do without them?!?!?!?!?!

I read all of your responses and thought, I did many of those before I had this problem. What was I worried about?

Thankfully, I've been given the OK to have a glass of wine OR one pint a day......

In France and the BeNeLux countries "jus" instead of gravy is pretty well-known. Upon ordering a meal let them know you can only eat the meat and the veggies and that you would like to have it with jus instead of "sauce". As to GB/IRL: They are English speaking countries so you should actually be fine, just explain to them what you need, what you can and cannot eat. Your biggest challenge there: I don't know a single English or Irish bar, pub, restaurant where the waitresses are not either from Poland or the Czech Republic. It might make sense if you knew the words starch, sugar, low-carb in Polish and Czech. Using the German-Polish online dictionary on www.pons.de I found for starch "skrobia" and "krochmal". Both are used in the plants/food context. Carbohydrates are "weglowodan". Sugar is "cukier".

Breakfast may be your best friend. Assuming that your hotels have a breakfast buffet of some sort, there will nearly always be cheese, yogurt, sliced cold meats, and eggs. Composed salads make a good low-carb lunch--meat or fish along with vegetables. In the UK you might try Indian buffets for lunch--there will usually be some vegetable curries and chicken tikka, and you can skip the rice and naan. Good luck and enjoy your travels.

Actually, I think the US diet is much starchier & sugarier than many European diets. So you'll do better over here, even in the UK.

You shouldn't have a problem - there are plenty veggie restaurants and I've never been to a restaurant or cafe in Europe where you couldn't get something without bread or potatoes. It's also just fine to ask for them to leave the bread/roll/bun out of something. People on gluten-free diets have to do that all the time.

As to the Polish waitresses - that's an , even in Scotland. And many of them are college grads anyway, so their English skills are just fine.

Also, in Continental Europe breakfast (espeically in hotels & B&Bs) is often a big meal with meat, cheese, and fruit, as well as juice, cereals and bread. So you will have plenty of things to eat.

You can also do picnic lunches from local supermarkets where you'll have plenty of choices.

Kate