How to explain in a Chinese restaurant?

[kim55]

I've been planning a short trip to Chicago, IL, and eyeing the various tours and attractions there. They apparently have a lot of great food tours but I'm not going to take one because I know I won't be able to eat most of what they serve. However, we will be staying fairly close to Chinatown and I thought it would be fun to try a restaurant or two there. My normal experience at home involves a long explanation, "no sugar, no fruit, no plum sauce, no brown sauce, etc." and I am successful in getting something I can eat about 50% of the time. However, if there is a language barrier this complicates things. Does anyone have a better way of explaining "no sugar" in a Chinese restaurant? We need an international symbol!

[ukbill]

When I go into a new Chinese Restaurant I always ask them what I can eat that has no added sugar. they usually go and ask the chef. I do not expect them to know everything that has sugar in it... not even Nutritionists and some Doctors seem to know that..

The beauty of Chinese food is if something is stir fried it tends not to spread its flavours to other foods. So I can eat round things like peas, onion and sweet peppers if they are included.

Things like Chow mein is best avoided.. as its a stew (fundamentally and originally dog stew) so onion etc will have leached out its sugars into the sauce.

Just use your head and take a person with you who is happy to eat anything, particularly something you have tried and found to be too sweet.

If in doubt and you have a good enough sensitivity to sweet taste and can detect sugar in foods, then a Chinese Buffet type place can be the answer.. I put a dab of the sauce on the side of a plate and taste it to see if it's sweet or should a I say below an unacceptable level of sweetness as most sauces seem to be slightly sweet.

I know we can "balance out" small doses of Fructose by eating things like plain boiled rice.. the glucose from digesting the rice starch will help reduce the Hypoglycaemia so long as we don't go mad..

However doing this on a regular basis seems to make me feel very "down" and generally ill.

Of course this can also, if done to excess, still lead to liver and kidney damage.

Enjoy your trip.

[julienc]

When eating at a Chinese place I usually just default to chicken fried rice, and then ask them to hold virtually everything that comes in it. Normally I'm left with rice, chicken, egg, and sometimes a couple of bean sprouts or a little green onion. No spices or sauces other than the oil they fry it in. It's fairly boring but usually safe. I tend to get burned any time I try to get adventurous eating Chinese food.

[lac4glu4fruc4ntl]

i happen upon u folks bi just searching 'eggs & fructose'. (i can handle whites but apparently not the yolk) read the posting about that & then came here. i have just recently, last 6 mos or so cum 2 understand that i have hfi. knew i had sum sugar issues, then hyypoglycemia which led 2 me 2 understanding hfi. thing is, i am also lactose ntollerant, which i learned decades ago. just prior 2 the fructose issue i learnt i was gluten ntollerant. i was feeling really bad & the blood pressure got high which it never had b4, i am athletic & was mindful of what i ate, organic mostly. keeping the weight up is a struggle & chore most of the time. i hear that's also rare but this site is still comforting. many thnks 2 the moderator 4 initiating it. anyway that's been about 2 yrs now.
just wanted 2 say that it is comforting 2 know that i'm not so unique & unrelatable as i was feeling. thanks 2 u all 4 posting yur xperiences...i was over joyed that others could relate 2 the daily struggle of figuring out what 1 can eat n an nvironment of lavish 'food like stuff'. thnks again. not overjoyed that u all suffer...u know what i mean

[ukbill]

Hi glad you have found good information that has helped you.

If eggs are causing you trouble you might be one of the unfortunate 0-0 people who have extremely low tolerance.

Alternatively a lot of the other problems (Gluten, Lactose etc) might be being caused by your liver having a very hard life..

Have you had your liver enzymes checked recently?

Which part of the world are you in please .. it helps with our reply's.. (ie different countries have different sugar content in the same "brands")

If Your liver is bad it can cause the other effects worse than the ones you have mentioned

DFI is unpleasant to live with but not life threatening.

HFI however can if not controlled destroy your liver.. as you will most likely already know.

So if we can be of any help just ask..

OK?

[lac4glu4fruc4ntl]

thnks a bunch. i mis-spoke, i b-lieve i have dietary fructose ntolerance. i assume i would not have made it this long if i had the hfi. tho, i now know that when i have pain n left or right lower back that its the kidneys & sumwhere i ate sum fructose. what r sum of the major ndicators that distinquishes b-tween hfi & dfi?

had a major (almost fatal accident n 97) they did all kinds of blood work & tests & couldn't find why i was clotting. so i xpect they did liver tests also. i have the forms i will check. but i have never been diagnosed as having any liver problems, how might u know other than the enzyme tests?

i tend 2 stay away from western conventional medicine. i'm out of usa, illinois. so never had a liver enzyme check here recently; but i might need 2 huh?

the sugar issue was 1st, then as a young adult developed sensitivity 2 milk then stop drinking it al2gether. i was always very active when i was young & a collegiate athlete (3 sports). had bad symptons since after college, constant nausea, severe xtremities numbness while sleeping, bloating, stomach pains, lost of appetite, lethargic, poor leg circulation on airplanes.

the 'sugar episodes' got ncreasingly worst 2 downright scary d-bilating. i began 2 realize the symptons & their connection 2 foods i was eating or eating @ all. didn't seek medical mput until blood pressure shot up then went 2 the rosenthal clinic n 2008.
also got hip 2 cinnamon via dr. andrew weil. if i do have a 'sugar episode' the cinnamon effectively n about 10-15 minutes 'rights the ship' so 2 speak.

[ukbill]

I doubt you have HFI because you would be born with it it is not a "condition" that appears, you have it from birth or don't have it.

Although our (FHI) sensitivity varies from time to time, we think it depends on if we have ingested Fructose in the preceding days or not eaten enough food and are running on our body reserves.

If we (those with HFI) eat sugar or Fructose our blood sugar level drops rapidly, well our Glucose blood sugar drops the total sugar in our blood stream stays the correct level, but been as we cannot remove the Fructose out of our blood it sits there for hours while our pancreas is trying to balance out the amount of sugar in the blood. This makes us feel really bad.. (Hypoglycaemia)

We can "fool" our systems by eating Glucose which will "flood" the blood stream and remove the Hypoglycaemia by over loading the blood with sugar. However this hides the damage then done by the breakdown products when the body eventually starts to remove the Fructose. These damage the liver and kidneys first and in extreme cases starts going for other organs too. (like brain).

This is why its not a good idea for HFI to eat Glucose.. Also a lot of Glucose is not pure enough for us and the fructose we are eating, contained in the Glucose or being masked by the Glucose, causes all sorts of horrible health problems, from a general feeling of being ill to organ damage / failure and possible death in extreme cases.

This is why best advice for HFi is to avoid ALL sweet tasting foods along with anything that contains Fructose or Sucrose (sweet tasting or not).

Unfortunately I cannot help with DFI as I have no real knowledge of the condition.

You might be able to find someone in the members list who has been diagnosed with it and message them to find out more information.

Or start a new thread under Adults and call it "DFI help / advice needed" or something similar, then any member with DFi can offer you help.. we are a friendly lot here

I know you tend to stay away form "conventional" medicine but I looks to me like you really need to get some serious investigations done to find out what's going on.

Best of luck and I hope you get sorted soon.

[charlie]

Hi
I second all that Bill and Fred said but I can give you more info on DFI as have researched it alot as they tend to think that that is what my daughter has.

DFI seems to come in two forms, one you are born with and symptoms start very early but one that can come on later in life after an illness or "assault on your body" of some sort. basically those with DFI are lacking the protein carrier that pulls the fructose through the large bowel wall so it sits there and ferments and bubbles causing gut pain.
There is an australian dietitian called sue Shepherd who has done alot of research on it and reckons that if you balance glucose / fructose ratio in foods then the fructose can get pulled through by the glucose. Not something I want to risk on Megs as I am not convinced yet that she doesn't have HFI as she has so many symptoms. There is a yahoo chat group on fructose malabsorbtion, don't know exact web adress but if you have access to yahoo go into groups and search fructose malabsorbtion. I think there are 2, one is out of date the other is current. Handle the info with care as people on it very varying in symptoms.

I second Bill on getting tested properly first tho. I assume they have ruled out diabetes.

[lac4glu4fruc4ntl]

thnk u all very much. this has been very helpful. it gives me sum nfo that i can ponder & derived @ a more effective approach. oh sorry again, i meant 'ddn't know why i wasn't clotting'. i pray that u all will have continued progress n yur daily efforts 2 maintain sum semblance of homeostasis.

[sarahk]

HI,

I haven't been on in a long time.
At Chinesse restaurants, if the waiter isn't a native English speaker-or clearly understands English, I always ask, very nicely, to speak with someone else--usually the owners teenage kids are there working, so they have a better understanding of sugar and sweets.

[serene]

I was in Chinatown this week with some Chinese friends. We got into a discussion about what is safe to eat for HFI. Apparently, southern Chinese food, they put sugar in nearly everything. The soy sauce is not safe. They put balsamic vinegar and or sugar in it.

I did fine though with the fried rice and dumplings. My friend confirmed with them no sugar in the dumplings.

As a side note, there are some dipping sauces that are safe. I had some luck with a hot pot sauce, but it is safer to do this at home as there are many that are not safe.