Does This Annoy You?

[jasonD2]

When you sit down at a restaurant and tell the server you have a gluten allergy and they look at you like you're an alien? This doesnt happen to me much since i am fairly selective where i eat, but it still does happen on occasion and even at high end places. Why won't some agency make it a rule for restaurant owners to properly educate their staff on food allergies? will this ever change?

[Joni63]

When you sit down at a restaurant and tell the server you have a gluten allergy and they look at you like you're an alien? This doesnt happen to me much since i am fairly selective where i eat, but it still does happen on occasion and even at high end places. Why won't some agency make it a rule for restaurant owners to properly educate their staff on food allergies? will this ever change?

I hope some day it will change.

I've had much better luck asking for the chef and explaining your needs to them. They are usually so much more sympathetic and understanding. The server may get a little annoyed, but they usually get over it pretty quickly.

[K8ling]

Absolutely annoys me. I totally don't even want to eat there when I see that blank look.

[mcbeez]

As a server, I can say that I've been the one who's needed to educate the whole staff. It isn't something a chef, owner, GM, or server is trained on, and I don't foresee that changing any time soon unless WE are the ones to educate and bring awareness to the issue.

[mcbeez]

And really, you can't blame the server. It's not something I was really aware of until I was diagnosed, as is true of many other people. It's frustrating, yes, but let's be proactive instead of just getting frustrated.

[tennisman]

Yeh it's annoying. Another annoying thing about restaurant's 1 time while I was at a party at a restaurant I was talking to 1 of the chefs and was saying I was a celiac etc and he started going on about how celiac's were the bane of his life. I'm very unintelligent and didn't know what bane of my life meant at the time. Otherwise I would have been really angry lol.

[Aimeesue]

I recently read an article in The New Yorker about food allergies which said that "People with food allergies live under a constant threat, in a society that is still poorly informed about the condition. For people with peanut and tree-nut allergies, incidents in restaurants account for nearly a quarter of unintentional exposure and nearly half of all fatal reactions." They did a survey of restaurant managers and staff and found that a quarter of them thought that eating a "small amount" would be fine, half thought that frying would "destroy" the allergen, and a quarter thought that it would suffice to "remove an allergen from a finished meal, like taking walnuts out of a salad."

And that's for an allergen that causes anaphylatic shock and can actually kill people! And it's one that is pretty widely known. Gluten allergies? Not as immediately dangerous, but with an uninformed public and waitstaff, it's tough.

("The Peanut Puzzle," Jerome Groopman, The New Yorker 7 Feb. 2011)

[ndw3363]

I went to a restaurant and asked for their allergen menu. The hostess graciously brought it to me. However, when our server arrived, she looked right at me a said "umm...that's our allergen menu". I said, yes I know I requested it. She looked at me like I had cancer or something. The rest of the evening, everytime she spoke to me it was in a "oh you poor thing" tone. Drove me insane! I've only been gluten free for 3 weeks so it's all very new to me. Needless to say, I won't be going back there anytime soon. I've always preferred to cook at home anyway.

[jenngolightly]

I recently read an article in The New Yorker about food allergies which said that "People with food allergies live under a constant threat, in a society that is still poorly informed about the condition. For people with peanut and tree-nut allergies, incidents in restaurants account for nearly a quarter of unintentional exposure and nearly half of all fatal reactions." They did a survey of restaurant managers and staff and found that a quarter of them thought that eating a "small amount" would be fine, half thought that frying would "destroy" the allergen, and a quarter thought that it would suffice to "remove an allergen from a finished meal, like taking walnuts out of a salad."

And that's for an allergen that causes anaphylatic shock and can actually kill people! And it's one that is pretty widely known. Gluten allergies? Not as immediately dangerous, but with an uninformed public and waitstaff, it's tough.

("The Peanut Puzzle," Jerome Groopman, The New Yorker 7 Feb. 2011)

OMG. I haven't eaten out since I got my tree-nut allergy diagnosis last summer. Now I'm scared to death! What if they pick a walnut out of my salad?

[tbritt]

I don't eat at restaurants. Even well intentioned folks don't have any idea of how bad this is. We are space aliens. I was in physical pain the last four times (in the last six months) that I have eaten at restaurants. It's not worth it. At the last place, the chef came out to speak to me and I still got glutened.

I have folks make me food gifts all the time (because I'm a teacher). I just take them and throw them away. You never know if the food is contaminated. It affects my livelihood, so I don't mess with gluten.

[WitchyWoman]

I went to Outback tonight and asked for the Gluten free menu, ordered from it and was in the bathroom within 15 minutes after eating and in severe pain now (4 hrs later) I don't know if there was cross contamination or what but I am very hesitant to go back.