ElseB

Nothing. Got glutened by my mother-in-law this afternoon and now soooooooooo sick.

As a woman with Celiac and Hashimotos who is considering having children in the next few years, I'm terrified to have children. With all of these autoimmune disesases, can I really produce a healthy child?

A restaurant near me recently started offering a gluten-free menu. So I sent them an email explaining the importance of avoiding cross contamination and asking them to explain how they ensure that menu items advertised as being gluten-free are in fact gluten-free each and every time that they are served to the customer. Their response:

Thank you for contacting us! I have forwarded your feedback to our Director of Training, Operations and Development as well as our Executive Chef & President and C.E.O for further review on the matter.

It is through feedback from valued guests, such as yourself, that we are able to continually improve our level of service and quality of our products and we thank you for giving us this opportunity.

This response didn't inspire much confidence that they actually have any kind of procedures for avoiding cross contamination. I definitely won't be trying out this restaurant. And I'm sure I will have to explain to more than one friend or colleague why I won't eat at this restaurant despite the fact that it has "gluten free" food. ugh, I hate these restaurants.

Contrast this with another restaurant near me that introduced a gluten free menu for a brief period, then removed it for "liability" reasons. They had received legal advice that since they can't guarantee that anything really is gluten free, they shouldn't have a gluten-free menu. Yet I feel so much safer at this restaurant. As soon as you say you have a food allergy or intolerance they send out the manager to deal with you. I have never once gotten sick at this restaurant. Yet I have gotten sick at many places with gluten free menus. The menu is meaningless: it is the attitude, training and experience of the staff that makes the difference.

Someone tried to tell me last week that pregnancy was a cure for Celiac Disease. This person supposedly had a friend who had Celiac, and then she got pregnant, had a baby and now she can eat gluten with no problems at all! So she suggested I should try getting pregnant "because you never know, it just might work". Had I been thinking faster, I should have asked her if pregnancy was also a cure for stupidity in which case she should perhaps give it a try!

I am sure you can bring some crackers or snackbars in your purse to keep you going. I live in Australia which is one of the strictest countries in the world in regards to food items that can be brought in, and even our quarantine officers allow prepackaged bakery goods. You'll feel less panicky if you know you have *something* to tide you over, but I'm sure you'll be able to find some food there. Enjoy your trip!

I actually specifically asked the cruiseline about taking crackers off and they said that even that wasn't allowed. I'm just going to have to bring a very large supply of crackers and snack bars from home and then hide a day's supply of them in my bag and my husband's bag for each shore excursion. I figure if I spread out the supply between both of our bags if one of use gets searched, the other one may be able to get away with not being searched!