Catering to the minorities - Ha'aretz

[Scott Adams]

Open Original Shared Link Ha'aretz With celiac disease, diabetes and food allergies on the rise, there's dough to be made by savvy restaurants and food traders. By Dafna Arad For some people, going out to a restaurant is no simple matter. They may be allergic to a given food and look ... Open Original Shared Link

Open Original Shared Link

[Takala]

Good article. A bit worried about this, however:

For Rachel Talshir - who writes about health food for Haaretz - Tel Aviv's Mezze Cafe is a paradise for celiac sufferers. "It was established by Efrat Rabinowitz, who has celiac, and her partner, chef Gal Barzilay, who is vegetarian. The place provides moments of grace to celiacs, who need not worry about secondary infection due to exposure to flour. According to Rabinowitz, "Sometimes we get people here and I can see that they are really afraid to eat and don't enjoy going out to restaurants because it's such a problematic thing for them."

The cafe's menu is vegetarian and based on fresh vegetables, grains, legumes, different types of whole grain rice, quinoa and spelt. In other words, it is also not bad for a healthy person. "As a person with celiac," says Rabinowitz, "I really hate it when, at places that have gluten-free dishes, they are listed in a separate menu and are on the side so that - god forbid - someone 'normal' won't eat it. We offer the same items to people who are and are not sensitive. Our best known dessert is the pistachio cake, made of ground pistachios and almonds, which is ordered mostly by people with no health problems at all.

Spelt is a primitive form of wheat ! SPELT IS NOT GLUTEN FREE, AND HAS NO PLACE IN A GLUTEN FREE MENU OR IN A GLUTEN FREE RESTAURANT ITEM, especially on a restaurant menu which is NOT listing safe and unsafe items on a separate menu or sidebar !

"... we offer the same items to people who are and are not sensitive...."

Celiac people are afraid to eat out ? Yes, I could see where celiacs and gluten intolerants would be afraid to eat out.... very afraid, if the supposedly gluten free menu was not making it obvious which items were contaminated (they are using the word "infected") with wheat spelt !!!!

[kareng]

The spelt could be a problem if they are saying its gluten-free. "infected" might just be a translation issue. I think they meant what we call cc. Infected to us means germs but it could be used in place of CC. Especially because Cross Contamination is a restaraunt & Health Dept term for things like chicken juice left on the cutting board & then cutting the veggies.