Story of my European trip

I just came back from my 3 weeks trip in Europe. First week I visited Belgium, where I attended a Music Festival for 3 days and 2 more weeks in Hungary.

I haven't been to Europe for 4 years, and I thought it will be easy to stay on keto. Boy, I was wrong.

Flying to Portugal, where I had to change my plane, I requested gluten free meal. I could eat about half of it.

First day I arrived to my hotel in Brussels, I went to the grocery store and picked up some "emergency items", in case I get back late, something to snack.

I got some, cheese, cold cuts, green pepper, tomatoes and raspberries.

Thursday they took us for a little trip to Antwerp and we tasted Belgian specialties, like beef stew with french fries. Naturally I skipped the fries, but later on I was hungry, so I had that too. Not to be mean, but I didn't like the fries, they were kind of dry and tasteless.

Breakfasts at the hotel were always good. I usually had eggs, cheese, ham or salami, smoked salmon, bacon, pickles and plain yogurt.

At the Festival they have many options to choose from, so I gave it a try and didn't stay keto the entire time. Oh well.

Next week I was in Hungary. That's where I'm originally from, so I stayed with family. They know I'm on keto, so they asked me, what to make for me. My Godmother made me chicken soup with no noodles and pork ribs first day.

We went to buy food the next day, and surprisingly I wasn't able to find many low carb or keto options. Picked up some meat, bacon, vegetables and of course reading all the labels, very low sugar items.

I was in shock, that all pickled vegetables contain sugar.

My cousin ask me to make hamburgers, and we went store to store to find ground beef. This is another thing, what I don't understand. It might be only in my hometown, but it seems like, they sell cheaper meat like pork and chicken instead. I totally understand, because prices are pretty much the same like here in the US, but people don't have the same income.

Bakeries offering Zero cakes and desserts. It's nice to see they approaching "The diet world". I did read about the ingredients, and they are lactose free, gluten free, made with coconut and rice flour and no added sugar, but using erythritol to sweeten.

Going to restaurants, wasn't easy to order either, but rare occasions the menu shows allergy, marked next to the meal. That's definitely a plus.

Overall my experience in Europe, wasn't bad, but I could stay maybe 70% on track.

This trip made me realize, I can call myself lucky, living in the US and be able to get all ingredients I want and need to stay keto/low carb.