People with diabetes and insulin resistance can struggle to find the right foods for their diets when everything is going smoothly. I have a close family member who has diabetes, and I’ve watched her as she has worked to adjust her diet. I see her struggle as she looks for shelf-stable snack foods that are low in sugar and low carb. Sometimes it isn’t easy. So in last week’s blog post, I mentioned that I got an e-mail from a reader asking about bug-out bag food for people with diabetes. And as a result, we tackled Breakfast options for Diabetics. This week we’ll take it further and discuss “Bug-Out Bag Lunches and Dinners for Diabetics.”
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Lunch
In my opinion, lunch is the easiest meal to do low-carb! There are so many great options that are even single-serving sizes. Let’s jump in and talk about some of them.
Meats
I’ve found many great meat products that work well for lunch for bug-out bags.
Tunafish 
Many people already eat tuna fish packets for their lunch. Now, if you want to do something like this, you will need to make sure that you pack a spoon. At my local Aldi (Do you all have Aldis around? It is by far my favorite grocery store – and the most economical grocery store around.), there are two different types of tuna fish packets I feel very comfortable recommending. They are low-carb. They have Northern Catch original Chunk Light Tuna (0g carbs) and Northern Catch Zesty Lemon Pepper (2g net carbs).
Tinned Meats
Sardines – Northern Catch has three varieties of sardines – all of which are less than 2g carbs. You can find sardines in soybean oil, mustard sauce, and hot sauce. Amazon has Ocean Prince Sardines with 0g of carbs – for less than $1/can. That’s even a better price than Aldi.
Vienna Sausages – Another low-carb meat option is the small cans of Vienna Sausages. Armor Vienna Sausages have less than 1g of carbs. Aldi has their house brand Brookdale Vienna Sausages. They beat the Amazon price by $.04/can and have 0 carbs.
Underwood Deviled ham and Deviled chicken – When I was growing up, we took these on picnics while on vacation. And, yes, they are a bit salty, but I enjoyed these. We paired them with crackers (look lower on the page for Keto Crackers). If you choose these, make you have crackers or have spoons to eat them. The Deviled ham has 1g of carbs, and the deviled chicken has 3g of carbs per 2.25 ounce can.
Dried Meats
Jack Links – I love Jack links beef sticks. They are 2g carbs and taste great. We often will carry these with us on trips because they are shelf-stable, low carb, and delicious. Costco has a 20-pack of large beef sticks. We recently picked this up for our upcoming family vacation.
Aldi has a new product called Carne Seca. Air-dried beef – Chili Lime and Habanero varieties are zero grams of carbs.
Now I looked for an expiration date on both, and there wasn’t one! So that leads me to believe there wasn’t an expiration date on purpose.
Aldi has another two products that I wholeheartedly endorse – Sims Zero Sugar Original Smoked Sausages and Zero Sugar Spicy Jalapeno Smoked Sausages. Both of these have no carbs in them. And their expirations dates are 11 months out! So if you’re switching out your BOB food once a year, these should work well.
You need to know that neither the Carne Seca nor the Smoked sausages are single servings. That’s the trade-off you’re going to have for low-carb offerings. You may want to repackage them into single servings if you have a food sealer or even just in zippered bags. Make sure that if there’s an expiration date, you include it on your repackaging.
Low-Carb Crackers/Chip-Like 
So in doing research for this article, I found some Keto crackers that Aldi has, and I will tell you, I’m in love! Okay, not actually, but close. They have these two Keto Crackers – Cheese crackers (they are not like Wisps that I’ll mention in a moment) and Everything crackers. Both were SO GOOD, and both had 4g net carbs per serving. But again, these are NOT single-serving packages. Each package contains four servings.
Wisps – I LOVE Wisps. All they are is baked cheese, but they are delicious, crunchy, and hit my chip spot. I purchased mine at Costco for less than $10. It came with 14 single-serving size bags in the box. Amazon has a similar option, but it’s 12 bags of Wisps/box, and it costs just under $13, so Costco is the better bargain.
Nuts
Nuts are an outstanding balance of protein and fat and are still low carb. I love Costco’s mixed nut box with 30 single-serve packages of nuts in it. It has three different types of nuts: Cashews, Peanuts, and Almonds. It costs about $.55/bag of nuts and comes to about $16.50/box. The Roasted and salted peanuts and the roasted and salted almonds are 3g of net carbs each. The Roasted and salted cashews are a bit higher in carbs at 11g net carbs.
Amazon has a variety pack of Oh Nuts! This pack has different nuts and seeds, including sunflower seeds, cashews, macadamia nuts, walnuts, roasted salted pecans, pepitas, almonds, and barbeque toasted corn nuts, spicy peanuts, and roasted hazelnuts. They are all Keto, and all have between 3g-4g net carbs.
Surprise item 
So in doing research for this article, I was surprised to find another nutritious, shelf-stable item, and many varieties are 0g net carbs. Okay – I must admit, my first thought is, you’ve got to be kidding me, but the more I read about it, the more impressed I am. Did you know that crisped and roasted seaweed is a thing? Believe it or not, it is! Some people say that you can substitute chips with these. It’s high in both vitamin C and omega-3s.
According to the product page for gimMe Organic Roasted Seaweed Sheets, “Seaweed is one of the most nutrient-dense foods in the world and is naturally loaded with protein, fiber, vitamins, and minerals.”
I will be the first to let you know I have not tried this yet as I just found this researching for this article, but this is something I would pick up and try. I’ve even seen seaweed sheets similar to this at Costco.
Lunch and Dinner Drink options
Low-carb and calorie drink mix options have gone out of the roof in the last few years! So that provides you with different options and flavors for your bug-out bags.
Crystal Light – I’ve recently purchased an assorted box of different drink mix flavors. Most of them have 2g of carbs per single-serve package of drink mix. A box from Costco was $8 and had 60 ‘sticks’ of drink mix.
Flavored Instant Iced Teas – I’ve long been a fan of instant iced tea with lemon, but now, you can get them as a ‘fairly’ low carb option. I mentioned in the Bug-Out Bag Breakfast Options that I like True Lemon. Well, it turns out that True lemon also has an instant iced tea with lemon. It has 3g of carbs per ‘stick’ of the mix. But it only has 1g of added sugar. Some of the other brands I found had the same amount of carbs but 2g of added sugar. I also found a peach-flavored iced tea put out by True Lemon. But Crystal Light also has a raspberry-flavored iced tea with only 1g of carbs!
Soda Singles – Sunkist has different flavors of “soda singles.” The grape variety only has 1g of carbs. Lemon-lime, Strawberry, Pineapple, Red Punch, and Peach all have 2g of carbs.
Electrolyte Singles – So, if you are looking for a low-carb drink full of electrolytes, look no further than sugar-free Gatorade Singles. They have three flavors in a multi-flavor pack: Glaciar Cherry, Orange, and Glaciar Freeze. Another Gatorade three-pack contains Cherry, Grape, and Glaciar Freeze. Propel Fitness Water has a five-box variety pack including Berry, Grape, Kiwi-Strawberry, and Raspberry Lemonade. The Propel version has 0 carbs or less than one carb per single.
Bug-Out Bag Dinners for Diabetics 
So let’s talk dinners. In our house, dinner is a more substantial meal, and I tried to look for the same thing here while balancing the need for lower carb options.
Let me start by saying that three things are going on here as I present dinner options.
First, I looked for things that were less than 30 net carbs for the meal.
Second, I also looked for just add water meals. I want even dinners to be simple. The last thing you want to do is to have to cut, chop, peel, open can after can, and combine things in hopes of getting it tasting good.
Lastly, I tried to find some meals that were something other than soups. Soup may be okay for one or maybe two nights, but I don’t think most people want to eat soup multiple nights in a row, especially in the middle of summer. So let’s jump into this section. I’m doing to divide it into the three categories from above.
Extra-low Carb soups
On Amazon, I searched for low-carb dehydrated soups and found many of them. Most of these are single-serving, so if a person with diabetes wants to eat one of these while the rest of the family eats something a little ‘more normal,’ that shouldn’t be an issue. The downside is that they are a little more expensive per serving than something like the soups that you’ll find later.
Bariwise Soup Mix – Cream of Broccoli – 2g net Carbs
Nutriwise Bacon and Cheese – 4g net Carbs
WonderSlim Chicken Noodle Soup – 5g net Carbs
ProtiDiet Vegetable Beef Soup Mix – 6g net Carbs
Wonderslim Protein Meal – Zesty Vegetable Chili with Beans – 9g net Carbs
Just Add Water Soups 
These soups are all less than 30g net carbs, but they are all soups. Some are more chunky than others, and the servings will probably be fewer than they tell you it should feed. So, watch your portion size if you’re concerned about your carb count.
Bear Creek Tortilla Soup Mix – 18g net Carbs – 18g net carbs. I found the nutritional facts for the soup here.
Bear Creek Darn Good Chili – 18g net Carbs
Bear Creek Vegetable Beef Soup – 19g net carbs. I found the nutritional facts for the soup here.
Bear Creek Chicken Noodle Soup – 21g net Carbs
Bear Creek Minestrone – 21g net carbs. I found the nutritional facts for this soup here.
Bear Creek Country Kitchens Creamy Wild Rice – 22g net carbs. I found the nutritional facts for the soup here.
Bear Creek Broccoli Cheese Soup – 24g net Carbs
Bear Creek (clamless) Clam Chowder – 24g net carbs. Add canned clams.
Bear Creek Country Kitchen Creamy Potato Soup – 25g net Carbs
Bear Creek Gumbo Soup Mix – 25g net carbs. I found the nutritional facts for the soup here.
Bear Creek Creamy Chicken Soup – 26g net Carbs
Chunkier – Just Add Water Dinners
Are you looking for something with a little more ‘stick to your ribs’ quality than soup? When researching this article, I found out that there is a company specializing in low-carb camping meals! Now, I might debate what they classify as low-carb, but some of them fit the category. I want to introduce you to Sugar Summit Backcountry – Carb-conscious Camping and Backpacking Food. Here are some of the meals that I would recommend based on their descriptions, reviews, and nutritional information.
Sloan’s Sweet Potato Stew – vegan – 23g net carbs
Golden Cliffs Curry Chicken – 23g net carbs
Colorado Trails Stone Soup – vegan and gluten-free – 29g net carbs
Deserts
While dinner doesn’t require dessert, sometimes having that sweet end to your meal helps when you’re in a stressful situation. Here are some carb-conscious desserts. Again though, let me caution you to try these before you put them in your bug-out bags. You don’t want to find out that they disagree with you when you’re leaving your home for days at a time.
Smart Baking Company Smart Cake – 0g net Carbs
Peanutbutter Chocolate Chip Cookie Keto Friendly Low Carb – 5g net Carbs
Quest Nutrition Double Chocolate Chip Protein Cookie – 5g net Carbs
Quest Nutrition Cookies and Cream Protein Bars – 4 g net Carbs – Amazon
For all of you who are trying to watch how many carbs you take in, I hope these suggestions have been helpful for you.
What About You?
What Low Carb lunch and dinner options are you aware of that haven’t been mentioned here. Please share them with us in the comments so we can all be better prepared!
You’ve got this, Mama!
