Can diabetics eat well in Morocco with all the sugar and carbs?

I plan trips for diabetic travellers regularly and the worry is always the same: mint tea poured like syrup, towers of pastries, bread with every meal. Here is the reassuring reality. None of that is forced on you. A standard Moroccan meal is actually built around things a diabetic can eat freely — grilled lamb and chicken brochettes, whole grilled fish, slow-cooked vegetable and meat tagines, eggs, olives, soft cheeses and yoghurt, and the famous Moroccan salad of tomato, cucumber, pepper and herbs. The carbs are the optional extras, not the main event.

The two things to manage are the tea and the bread. Moroccan mint tea is traditionally made very sweet, but it is brewed fresh, so you can always ask for it 'sans sucre' (without sugar) or 'b shwiya sukar' (with a little sugar) and they will make it that way. The bread basket and the couscous on Fridays are where the fast carbs hide — just leave the bread and ask for extra vegetables or a salad instead. Tagine sauce is naturally low-sugar unless it is a sweet lamb-with-prunes dish, which is easy to spot on a menu and skip.

When I brief a riad in advance, I tell them simply: my guest is diabetic, please go easy on sugar and offer fruit or nuts instead of pastries at breakfast. Riads love this kind of instruction because they cook to order. Breakfast then becomes eggs, olives, cheese, yoghurt, avocado and fresh fruit rather than a pile of msemen pancakes and jam. If you take insulin or tablets, carry your own glucose tablets and a couple of snack bars, because pharmacy hours vary in smaller towns and you do not want to be hunting for them mid-excursion.

Practically, eat at sit-down restaurants and riads where dishes are cooked fresh rather than grabbing sugary street snacks, and you will eat better than at home. Date the meal around protein and veg, drink water and unsweetened tea, and treat the pastries as a one-bite experience rather than a daily habit. I have never had a diabetic client struggle here — if anything they tell me the fresh, slow-cooked, vegetable-heavy cooking made their levels easier to manage than airport-and-hotel food on the way over.