I've eaten my way through more than forty countries with Type 1 diabetes.
I've stood in front of Bangkok night markets genuinely unable to identify half of what was in front of me, worked my way through seven-course tasting menus in Italy without a carb count in sight, and somehow made it through a two-week road trip across the American South — where sugar isn't a seasoning, it's practically load-bearing infrastructure. And through all of it, I've kept my blood sugar reasonably in check.
"Reasonably" is doing some heavy lifting in that sentence, and I mean it honestly.
Eating abroad with diabetes is never a clean, predictable experience.
You will miscalculate.
You'll get a surprise spike from that rice dish you were certain would be fine.
And there will be that one stomach-dropping moment — sitting at a table somewhere remote, CGM alarming, realising your glucose tabs are sitting on the nightstand back at the hotel.
I've been there. More than once.
But here's what I know after twenty-plus years of travelling with Type 1: the joy of eating your way through a new place is absolutely worth it. Food is how you understand where you are. And diabetes, once you stop fighting it and start working with it, doesn't have to hold you back from any of it.
Here's what I've actually learned about eating abroad with diabetes — through trial, error, and a whole lot of miscalculated meals.
👉 Food is just one piece of the puzzle when you're travelling with diabetes. If you're still putting together your overall game plan — medications, documentation, what to pack — check out our full guide to travelling with diabetes for everything from your pre-trip checklist to managing supplies on the road.
The carb count is never what you think it is
Nobody warns you about this clearly enough before your first big trip with diabetes.
The same dish, prepared in a different country, can hit your blood sugar in a completely different way.
A few examples that have genuinely caught me off guard over the years:
- Pasta in Italy is typically cooked al dente, which digests more slowly and causes a gentler blood sugar rise than the softer versions you might be used to at home in Canada.
- Japanese white rice spikes me faster than almost anything else I eat. I've learned to dose conservatively and correct later — every time, without exception.
- Mexican beans? Slower than you'd ever expect. A genuinely pleasant surprise the first time I figured it out.
- Indian dal depends entirely on the type of lentils, the cooking time, and whether it's been made with ghee. Same name, wildly different outcomes.
- Quebec-style poutine — which I eat at home and think I understand — behaves completely differently at 11pm after a long day of walking than it does at dinner on a quiet Tuesday in Toronto. Travel changes everything, including food you already know.
None of this is an argument for avoiding these foods. It's an argument for approaching them with curiosity rather than anxiety.
💡 My number one rule when eating abroad: start with a slightly conservative insulin dose, eat, and watch. I'd rather deal with a mild high a couple of hours later than go low in a restaurant where no one speaks English — or French.
Do your food research before you land — not when you're hungry
Before any new trip, I spend at least an hour researching the local food landscape. Not to restrict myself — to arrive prepared. I want to know:
- What are the main carbohydrate staples in this country's cuisine?
- Is the local bread dense and filling, or light and airy?
- Does the food culture add sugar to savoury dishes? (It does, consistently, throughout Southeast Asia — and in more places than you'd expect.)
- Are portions generous or modest?
- Are meals eaten on a schedule, or is the culture more grazing-based?
The most practical food intelligence I've found consistently comes from online diabetes communities — places where real people share real blood sugar outcomes from specific dishes in specific countries. Type 1 forums are full of travellers who've road-tested everything from pho in Hanoi to injera in Addis Ababa to tagine in Marrakech.
Arriving in Japan already knowing that ramen broth often has hidden sugars — and that tonkotsu and miso ramen will behave very differently on your CGM — means you're not starting from scratch at every meal.
That kind of preparation is worth far more than any food restriction.
👉 Flying to your destination? Our guide on CATSA rules for diabetic travellers is worth reading before you even get to the checkpoint — covering scanner safety and your rights at airport security.
Always carry fast-acting carbs. No exceptions, no matter how good you're feeling.
This sounds obvious. And yet.
When you're abroad, it's easy to get comfortable. The travel mindset takes over, you're walking considerably more than usual, eating at unpredictable hours — and somehow your glucose tabs end up sitting on the nightstand at the hotel. I've done it. Once. One time was enough.
Now I keep glucose tabs in every bag, every jacket pocket, and every daypack I travel with. When I'm abroad, I double my usual supply — because I know I'll be more active than usual, my eating schedule will be unpredictable, and I will almost certainly miscalculate at least one meal. This is not pessimism. It's just experience.
Local options exist almost everywhere — fruit juice, a can of regular pop, a handful of candy — but in an actual hypoglycaemic episode, you want something familiar, in a dose you can measure, that you know works for you.
Don't rely on finding a corner store at the exact right moment. In Canada we take corner stores for granted. The rest of the world doesn't necessarily have a Shoppers Drug Mart on every block.
Getting through restaurant meals when language is a barrier
This is where I've had to get genuinely creative over the years. A few things that actually work:
✅ Learn a handful of words in the local language. "No sugar," "without sauce," and "what's in this?" will take you further than you'd expect. Google Translate's camera function — where you point your phone at a menu and get an instant translation — has become completely indispensable. It's not perfect, but it's transformed the experience of eating somewhere you can't read the alphabet. Download the language pack before you leave home so it works offline.
✅ Ask for sauces on the side. Restaurant sauces are often where the hidden sugars live, especially in Asian cuisines. Getting them on the side lets you control how much you add — or skip them entirely without making a fuss.
✅ Don't be afraid to eat simply. Some of my most diabetes-friendly meals while travelling have been the most straightforward: grilled fish and vegetables in Greece, a mezze spread in Lebanon, a plain rice bowl with pickled vegetables in Japan. Eating thoughtfully doesn't mean eating boringly.
✅ Talk to the restaurant. This works better than most people expect. Locally-owned restaurants — the ones actually cooking from scratch — are usually genuinely happy to tell you what's in a dish, adjust a preparation, or flag the sweeter items on the menu. As Canadians, we tend to be slightly apologetic about making requests. Don't be. A polite question is almost always welcomed.
👉 Headed somewhere with a long flight? Our guide on managing insulin across time zones covers how to adjust your schedule when crossing multiple time zones — something that can throw off even well-managed regimens.
Buffets, street food, and the beautiful unpredictability of eating abroad
Buffets are simultaneously a diabetic's dream and a diabetic's nightmare.
- The dream: you can see everything, choose exactly what you want, load up on protein, and quietly skip the second helping of white rice.
- The nightmare: portions are limitless, it's incredibly easy to eat more than you planned, and you're estimating fifteen dishes at once instead of one.
💡 My buffet rule: I plate everything before I inject my bolus insulin. I decide what I'm eating first, then dose. It sounds almost too simple, but it genuinely changed how I experience buffet meals entirely.
Street food is a different thing altogether — improvisational by nature, and one of the great joys of travel. I eat it, I enjoy it, and I accept that my blood sugar will probably do something unexpected. A small correction dose later is not a failure. It's just the price of eating a perfect bowl of laksa in Penang, or a plate of fresh tacos from a cart in Mexico City, or a steaming bowl of pho from somewhere that has no name and no menu and is somehow the best thing you've eaten all trip.
Accept the imprecision. It's worth it.
Heat, alcohol, and the things that complicate everything
Two factors affect blood sugar abroad more than almost any specific food: heat and alcohol. Both are worth understanding before you're in the middle of them.
Heat increases insulin absorption significantly. In hot climates — I've managed this in Morocco, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and southern Spain — insulin works faster, lasts for less time, and your sensitivity can shift noticeably from one day to the next. Canadians in particular tend to underestimate this, because we don't generally spend much time in sustained heat at home. Even a warm Vancouver summer is nothing like a week in Bangkok in April. I typically reduce my basal slightly in the first few days of a hot-climate trip and pay close attention to my overnight numbers until I understand how my body is adjusting.
Alcohol — particularly wine and spirits — can cause delayed hypoglycaemia hours after drinking, often overnight. Abroad, where you're more likely to be drinking with meals, staying up later than usual, and sleeping in an unfamiliar place, this is a real and underappreciated risk. I always eat a full meal alongside any alcohol, never drink on an empty stomach, and run a slightly higher blood glucose target overnight when I've had wine with dinner. A bigger-than-usual pre-bed snack is often the right call.
👉 Heat doesn't just affect how insulin works — it can affect whether your insulin is still viable when you actually need it. Our guide on how to keep insulin cool when travelling covers everything you need to know about temperature management on the road.
Your medication has to travel as well as you do
All the meal planning in the world only works if your insulin — or your Ozempic, Mounjaro, or other type 2 diabetes injection — is actually viable when you need it.
Insulin that's been sitting in a hot rental car, packed in checked luggage in an unheated cargo hold, or stored in a hotel mini-fridge that's essentially a warm box with a light inside is insulin you can't rely on. And when you're far from home and far from a pharmacy you know, that's a genuinely uncomfortable situation to be in.
After years of improvising with wet cloths, lunch bags, hotel ice buckets, and a fair amount of wishful thinking, investing in a medical travel cooler was the single biggest practical improvement I made to how I travel. My medication arrives in exactly the same condition it left in, every single time — whether I'm on a fourteen-hour flight or a long day of sightseeing somewhere hot.
👉 And if you want to know what to do when things go further wrong than a rogue bowl of rice, our guide to diabetes emergencies abroad covers severe hypos and DKA — symptoms, what to do, and how to prepare before you leave Canada.
Eating abroad is one of the great joys of travel — full stop
I want to end here, because I think it matters.
Managing diabetes abroad is genuinely more complicated than managing it at home. The food is less predictable, there are often no nutrition labels, your schedule goes out the window, and some days you'll get it completely wrong. That's not a failure of your diabetes management. That's just travel.
The question isn't whether you can eat freely abroad with Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes. The question is whether you have the right tools, the right knowledge, and the right mindset going in.
I've had tagliatelle in Bologna and pad thai in Chiang Mai. I've eaten mezze in Beirut and fresh ceviche in Lima. I've had unexpected highs and lows that came from nowhere, and I've had meals so good they made the whole trip worthwhile.
And I have never once wished I'd stayed home.
💬 We Want to Hear From You!
Eating abroad with diabetes looks different for everyone — a different destination, a different insulin regimen, a different relationship with food and risk. If you've found something that works brilliantly, had a meal that completely threw you, or have a country you're nervous about visiting, share it in the comments below.
Where has your blood sugar surprised you — for better or worse? Any restaurant tricks, carb-counting hacks, or hard-won lessons from the road? The more we share, the easier it gets for all of us.
