NO EXCUSES!!!!

I know, right

The gubmint and them corporations have been forcing cheap plastic foods with GMOs down our throats for years

 

This is awesome results!!!!! I have no idea how you did a fast for that long!!!!! I would die. Do you cook your own food now? If you do, going low carb should be easy. Granted it takes food preps. I eat clean, I.e., stay away from processed foods (low glycemic index is my "diet,", pretty similar to paleo) and cook virtually all my food except when I travel for work but I usually ask for stuff that is not nessesarily on the menus. At the phoenix airport yesterday, I managed to get 2 chicken breasts with cannellini beans, grean beans and broccoli, not on the menu. I was super happy!!

 

Generally I am a bit too busy to cook my own meals regularly so I tended in the past to eat a mix of simple home prepared dishes, ready meals, in restaurants and home cooked meals (either prepared by me or someone else) - in descending order of frequency.

I'm cooking at the moment but it will not last.
I need to settle on something which is convenient, healthy and tasty.

 

Your results are very impressive!
You said that the options in Germany are limited for low carb.
That's hard to believe or are you talking about pre-cooked dinners that you can buy at the supermarket.
I found a website for low carb products (if you speak any German).

http://www.lcw-shop.de

 

Food in Germany is limited across the board.

For a broader view on the topic here are a few discussions on one of the biggest english speaking expat boards for foreigners living in Germany.

http://www.toytowngermany.com/lofi/index.php/t79524.html

http://www.toytowngermany.com/lofi/index.php/t13965-45.html

http://www.toytowngermany.com/lofi/index.php/t91689.html

http://www.toytowngermany.com/lofi/index.php/t51953-345.html

--

etc etc etc etc..

I've lived in Germany on and off for a number of years.

Food options are extremely limited.

 

Unique, Gem, and BY86, do you agree with these opinions on food availability where you live?

 

you can get everything you want in every bigger city in germany. sure, you might find urself in trouble in some smaller villages.
munich is definetly one of the bigger cities, whereby bavarian (region) food tends to fat in my opinion, but that doesnt mean u cant get anything else. byt should know better about the bavarian food then i do.

choice goes with price. if you want a international offer you will have to pay for it.
fish in central and south germany is generally expensive if it s fresh. a little cheaper if it comes from regional lakes and rivers. that choice is not everywhere.
if you want good meat, you are not going to the supermarket you are going to the butcher.
i could continue this list on and on.
after all- you can feed well of any discounter, even with seasonal offer of veggies or fruits if you are ready to cook urself.

lets be honest- i ve not been to the states or the uk, but i ve seen the offer on base.
hamburger helper and all that crap arent healthy aswell.
you can live unhealthy everywhere.

 

Same here, so I do food prepping and cooking on weekends so I have meals for the week. I find its th best way to get tasty, healthy food

Tell me more about your fasting.

 

I do the same with food prep. But I'm tired of it. I was never a huge processed food person anyway, but I do like carbs.

 

I really don't like processed food either, besides I actually feel bad when I eat such stuff. Son that is another reason I keep making my own food.

 

I get acid reflux from eating grains, particularly wheat, and also tomato sauce after its been reheated. I'm not having much luck controlling my blood sugars with diet or finding relief from inflammation in my joints and muscles, the primary reason I did the Whole30. But lots of people report tremendous success with it.

 

Well, I was purging my iPhoto collection today and came across the attached lovelies. I took these the last time I too a 850km round-trip jaunt to go shipping in the UK. Plus I added some other pics of UK sourced things which I still have lying around in the kitchen.

from http://postimg.org/gallery/2bypi4cu6/6d55c053/

And these are but a tiny random sample.

Examples of what you can get there which largely are not available ANYWHERE in Germany. And as you can see on the toytowngermany website it's not just me. Lots of people are having the same issues.

In the end I just live with things as they are and don't really fuss about it too much. When needs must then I just drive from here to to UK. It takes about 8 - 9 hours in total.

As with the OP you are both guessing about things of which you have no direct experience. Her about Germany and you about the UK.

And note these are not all "processed food". The images include low GI cereals, eclectic flavors and sugar reduced food. In Germany sugar is freely added to all manner of foods including diet/fitness supplements. And that's before you get to the limited choices for food from the more eclectic parts of the world. UK supermarkets for example have added large polish food sections in recent years due to the recent polish immigration - something which would be highly unusual in these parts.

Your comment about "Fish, meat, butchers" etc etc is all well and good but my point is about "choice". And the breadth of products is simply not there irrespective of how many shops you go to. It is not my intention to insult. That is just the way it is here and I like many other expats would be happy to be proven wrong.

There is no need to go in circles about this. As a great man once said "show me the money". I am in Dusseldorf. Please point out a shop where I can get a BROAD range of foodstuffs* within 600km and I will be happy to have been shown the error of my ways. Yes I am willing to travel 400 miles. That distance reaches as far as the largest cities in Germany incl. Frankfurt, Berlin, Hamburg and Munich. For the record I lived in Frankfurt previously and have been to all of the above loads of times. I was in Frankfurt for 2 days last week and will be in Berlin next weekend.

The following might be a better illustration of the larger choice.

*NB - as per image examples or for example like here

http://www.waitrose.com/shop/Browse/Groceries/Dairy_and_Eggs/Yogurts

Waitrose offer 249 different types of yogurts on their website alone. And they are not even a big supermarket. 200+ types of (bad I know) ice cream - http://www.waitrose.com/shop/Browse/Groceries/Frozen/Ice_Cream_Frozen_Yogurts_and_Sorbets . Interesting cheese mixes http://www.waitrose.com/shop/Browse/Groceries/Dairy_and_Eggs/Cheese/Flavoured_Cheese . 355 types of breakfast cereals http://www.waitrose.com/shop/Browse/Groceries/Food_Cupboard/Breakfast_Cereals . German supermarkets probably have about 50 (and defn. < 100).

Example world foods at tescos - http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/browse/default.aspx?N=4294793283&Ne=4294793660. And that's just stuff that they are willing to deliver (i.e. chilled). 437 types of yoghurts http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/browse/default.aspx?N=4294697609&Ne=4294793660 - inc. low fat, low sugar, alternatives to milk. 368 cooked meats - http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/browse/default.aspx?N=4294744025&Ne=4294793660

etc etc etc etc..

Yes you can cook at home but I am not in a position to start producing my own yoghurt, cheese, bread, cereal etc etc and/or source my own international food.

I would literally do all manner of things for some Jerk Chicken or Nandos - be that from a shop or a restaurant..
And then there is the small matter of limited restaurant options, processed foods, specialist diet ranges (low carb, low GI) and the tendency to add sugar or fat ("for flavor") to local produce.

The operative word in all of this is "choice".

Please "show me the money".
Names and places please.

 

true. the range of food you are requesting to find in one shop, you will not find anywhere here.
definetly not in a poor area like düsseldorf, maybe in berlin, that some unique would know.

german shops are not made to have that overload of offer thats right. you have to go to different shops and collect the stuff together if you want to. you might still not end up having all what you are requesting.
that s the way it is here.
i saw weight watchers among your pictures. there s, actually again, just a handful of those menu s receivable at rewe or edeka if they are in your area. at least they have them here.

the discussion started with there is no healthy food here- now we are talking about a huge offer of certain things you like.
the answer is, there is healthy food if you look for it, there s not that variety that you like to have in one shop, not necessarily even if you go look around at plenty others.
since u already said u dont have time to cook, i m not expecting you to take the time and go around checking where you may probably get things you like.

 

I agree largely with what you posted apart from.

What I actually said was

and

And I haven't wavered at all from that. At no point did I say that there was "no healthy food here". If I did please do a direct quote as I am sure that I did not. The above comments were terse, off-the-cuff, colloquial, broad-based summaries and hence pretty imprecise. The successive posts were used to clarify the statements and to provide supporting evidence for them. If a country gives you access to water, fruit, vegetables, nuts and other basics then it has healthy food - so any such comment about a first world country would naturally mean "on balance". On balance across the board healthy options are limited and hence the balanced avg. is lower than it could otherwise be. On balance if you want to have variety, convenience or have a special diet (e.g. low-carb as per my comment) then it starts to get complicated. More complicated than in some other places.

I thought that we had established that I lived in Frankfurt and have been to all the main large cities in Germany (a lot). ToytownGermany (the aforementioned expat website) covers all of Germany and I am also willing to travel a considerable distance if required so it is less about where I am in terms of city than where I am in terms of the country at large.

All pretty consistent if you ask me.

You on the other hand seem to have "adjusted" your position

--

Guessing I suppose has its place but names would perhaps be more effective. I am not saying that there is less choice in any one supermarket. My position is

"Across the board" implies "Irrespective of how many shops you go to". I have looked for years in NRW and Hesse in addition to during lesser periods in Berlin, Munich and I welcome hard evidence and/or suggestions. I lived in Frankfurt for 6 years. It has been an issue of concern for > 10 years. I used to order food from the lowcarbmegastore and one other online shop but got tired of that in the end. I then used to order Tesco's to an address in the UK and then get someone to courier it out to me but that too was in the end too much work. It was all too convoluted and there were issues with coordinating everything, posting fresh foods etc. Packages would sometimes break. Hundreds (if not thousands) have had the same battles as evidenced by the geographically dispersed ToytownGermany expat community.

It's nothing to do with this city or price. I am not in the least price sensitive when it comes to food. I drive ~850km (petrol) and take the ChannelTunnel to the UK to go shopping so am willing to pay what I have to.

Anyway this is my last comment about this particular aspect of this topic. It was a passing comment and as I already stated, I have already learned to live with it. That doesn't mean that I wouldn't prefer that things were different but it is what it is.

 

I absolutely disagree.
Might be like that in small towns/villages, but definitely not in Berlin (my hometown).

As a vegetarian I buy a lot of fresh vegetables and fruits.
If I buy bread, I chose dark bread (whole wheat) with sunflower seeds or likewise.
I never tried low-carb though. I always found that hard to do as a vegetarian.

There are different kind of supermarkets just like in the US.
We have the discounters (limited options) and the supermarkets that are a little more expensive (like Publix in the US).
And we have stores that sell a lot of organic food (so called "Reformhäuser" or Bio companies). You can compare those to the Fresh Market for example.

I never had any problems eating healthy (except for my chocolate addiction)

 

Incredible! Keep up the excellent work!

 

this video never fails to motivate

[YOUTUBE]Ja9BFx5Mhqo[/YOUTUBE]

 

a few studies mentioned that high in fiber foods...fruits veggies oatmeal and exercise 2 to 3 times a week is good on the heart.last get plenty of sleep.

 

I'm in Berlin (Mitte) now and will stay for a couple of days.
So where are these super-supermarkets?

 

I'm not familiar with the low carb diet, but you might find some products you like at Denn's Biomarkt.
They are not huge supermarkets, but specialized on organic food, so you might finds things you won't find at regular stores.

You will find them here:

Schönhauser Allee 10/11, 10119 Berlin-Mitte
Bernauer Str. 50, 10435 Berlin-Mitte
Greifswalder Str. 31, 10405 Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg
Schliemannstraße 48, 10437 Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg